What Happens to Youth Aging Out of Foster Care?

Under­stand­ing Aging Out of Fos­ter Care

All chil­dren need and deserve a lov­ing fam­i­ly to sup­port their life­long growth. Sad­ly, many old­er chil­dren in fos­ter care lack per­ma­nent fam­i­lies. Per­ma­nence occurs for old­er youth in fos­ter care via one of three path­ways: adop­tion, guardian­ship or reuni­fi­ca­tion with their birth fam­i­lies. A less favor­able out­come is aging out (also known as eman­ci­pa­tion). In the lat­ter sce­nario, youth grow too old to remain in fos­ter care and exit the sys­tem with­out a per­ma­nent family.

More than 15,000 young peo­ple age out of the U.S. fos­ter care sys­tem each year. It’s a chal­leng­ing start­ing point and one that, accord­ing to researchers, can car­ry life­long consequences.

What Are the Effects on Youth Who Age Out of Fos­ter Care?

The tran­si­tion to adult­hood is a sig­nif­i­cant and chal­leng­ing devel­op­men­tal phase of life for all young peo­ple, but eman­ci­pat­ed youth must endure this phase with­out the sup­port of a lov­ing fam­i­ly and absent the famil­iar sup­ports of the fos­ter care sys­tem. For eman­ci­pat­ed youth, the road ahead is far from easy. Com­pared to their gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion peers, young peo­ple who have aged out of fos­ter care are more like­ly to expe­ri­ence behav­ioral, men­tal and phys­i­cal health issues. They are also more like­ly to endure chal­lenges, such as:

• hous­ing instability; 
• job­less­ness;
• aca­d­e­m­ic difficulties;
• ear­ly par­ent­hood; and
• sub­stance use.

Learn about some of the risks fac­ing young peo­ple who have aged out of fos­ter care

Hous­ing Instability

The link between home­less­ness and fos­ter care is so well-defined that some peo­ple have called the child wel­fare sys­tem ​“a high­way to home­less­ness,” accord­ing to the Nation­al Fos­ter Youth Insti­tute. Con­sid­er the data:

• Close to one-third (29%) of home­less youth and young adults have spent time in fos­ter care, accord­ing to a Chapin Hall study. Some esti­mates are even higher.
• Almost half (47%) of youth and young adults with a fos­ter care his­to­ry first expe­ri­enced home­less­ness with their birth fam­i­lies, com­pared to 6% of their gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion peers, sig­nal­ing longer-term insta­bil­i­ty for many young peo­ple in care.
• One in four youth in fos­ter care at age 17 and sur­veyed at age 21 said that they had been home­less at some point in the last two years.
• Among for­mer fos­ter youth who age out of care, approx­i­mate­ly 22% to 30% become home­less dur­ing the tran­si­tion to adult­hood, accord­ing to a 2024 study. This is sub­stan­tial­ly high­er than the esti­mat­ed 4% life­time preva­lence of home­less­ness in the gen­er­al population. 

Home­less­ness is often accom­pa­nied by oth­er chal­lenges, too. For exam­ple: Com­pared to their sta­bly housed peers, young peo­ple who are home­less — even those who have not spent a day in fos­ter care — are more like­ly to exit school ear­ly, be unem­ployed and face men­tal and phys­i­cal health challenges.

Aca­d­e­m­ic Difficulties

Young peo­ple in fos­ter care face greater bar­ri­ers to aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess than youth in gen­er­al. Com­mon chal­lenges include edu­ca­tion dis­rup­tions due to chang­ing fos­ter care place­ments and schools, and grap­pling with the emo­tion­al trau­ma and stress of past mal­treat­ment, removal from home and rela­tion­ship insta­bil­i­ty. Stud­ies show that youth in fos­ter care miss twice the amount of school as their gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion peers, and one in three stu­dents in care has repeat­ed a grade. As they reach young adult­hood, addi­tion­al obsta­cles often include unsta­ble hous­ing, loss of fos­ter care finan­cial sup­port and lim­it­ed access to men­tor­ing or guid­ance. Such insta­bil­i­ty comes at a cost. Nation­wide, young peo­ple with fos­ter care expe­ri­ence grad­u­ate high school lat­er than their peers — and are less like­ly to grad­u­ate at all. For example:

• One in five (20%) youth who were in fos­ter care at 17 and sur­veyed at age 21 had not yet earned an edu­ca­tion­al degree, voca­tion­al cer­tifi­cate or or license of any kind, accord­ing to the KIDS COUNT^® Data Cen­ter.
• By their mid-20s, an esti­mat­ed 69% to 85% of young adults with fos­ter care expe­ri­ence obtain high school degrees, com­pared to the nation­al aver­age of 95%, accord­ing to a 2025 sys­tem­at­ic review of the lit­er­a­ture.
• The same study found that 8% to 12% of those with a fos­ter care his­to­ry earn an asso­ciate or bachelor’s degree by their mid to late 20s, far below 49% for the gen­er­al population.

How­ev­er, stu­dents with fos­ter care expe­ri­ence can achieve aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess when they have ade­quate sup­port, such as mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions to car­ing adults at school, finan­cial and oth­er mate­r­i­al assis­tance, sta­ble hous­ing, school-based sup­port ser­vices, men­tor­ing and inde­pen­dent liv­ing ser­vices.

Read more about Fos­ter Care Edu­ca­tion Outcomes

Ear­ly Parenthood

Young peo­ple with fos­ter care expe­ri­ence are more like­ly to become ear­ly par­ents rel­a­tive to their gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion peers. Among young adults who were in fos­ter care at age 17 and sur­veyed at age 21, 22% had wel­comed a child in the last two years. By com­par­i­son, just 5% of the nation’s young adults, ages 18 to 24, are par­ents, accord­ing to the lat­est KIDS COUNT Data Center.

Legal Sys­tem Involvement

The link between fos­ter care and legal sys­tem involve­ment is strong. Con­sid­er the data on this connection:

• Among U.S. youth who exit­ed fos­ter care at age 17 or lat­er, more than 30% had spent time in a cor­rec­tion­al or deten­tion facil­i­ty by age 17 and over 40% were incar­cer­at­ed by age 20, accord­ing to a 2025 study pub­lished in Child Abuse & Neglect.
• Nation­al­ly, 17% of all state and fed­er­al pris­on­ers have spent time in a fos­ter home, agency or insti­tu­tion, accord­ing to the U.S. Depart­ment of Justice. 

Being incar­cer­at­ed has life­long con­se­quences. Legal sys­tem involve­ment reduces an individual’s like­li­hood of earn­ing an edu­ca­tion­al degree, hold­ing a steady job or even earn­ing ade­quate wages rel­a­tive to indi­vid­u­als who have not crossed paths with the jus­tice system. 

Sub­stance Use 

Drug and alco­hol use is more com­mon among ado­les­cents with fos­ter care expe­ri­ence, and this pop­u­la­tion is at high­er risk for sub­stance use dis­or­ders. For instance, research has found:

• About one in five (21%) adults with a his­to­ry of fos­ter care are diag­nosed with sub­stance use dis­or­ders, com­pared to 5% of the gen­er­al population. 

• More than one in three (35%) youth in care at 17 meet the cri­te­ria for sub­stance use disorders.

Fac­tors that may help reduce sub­stance use include plac­ing chil­dren and youth in fam­i­ly-based fos­ter set­tings, place­ment sta­bil­i­ty and reduc­ing the time young peo­ple spend in fos­ter care.

Unem­ploy­ment

The road to adult­hood includes gain­ing paid work expe­ri­ence as well as devel­op­ing finan­cial inde­pen­dence and rela­tion­al skills. Yet, many who age out of fos­ter care strug­gle with unem­ploy­ment — and earn low­er wages — rel­a­tive to their gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion peers.

For exam­ple

• Just 56% of youth who were in fos­ter care at age 17 were cur­rent­ly employed part- or full-time at age 21, accord­ing to the KIDS COUNT Data Center. 
• By age 26, youth who age out of fos­ter care have 50% low­er earn­ings and 20% low­er employ­ment rates com­pared to oth­er young adults with com­pa­ra­ble edu­ca­tion lev­els, as report­ed in a 2022 Jour­nal of Eco­nom­ic Per­spec­tives arti­cle.

Sta­tis­tics on Aging Out of Fos­ter Care

The KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter tracks dozens of fos­ter care indi­ca­tors across all 50 states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico. Among the key sta­tis­tics for 2023:

• Nation­wide, 8% of young peo­ple who exit­ed fos­ter care — 15,345 total — did so through emancipation. 

• Two states had more than 1,000 ado­les­cents age out of their fos­ter care sys­tems in 2023 alone: Cal­i­for­nia (2,684 eman­ci­pa­tions) and Ohio (1,170).

• How­ev­er, the high­est per­cent­ages of fos­ter youth aging out were found in Vir­ginia (20%), D.C. (16%) and Michi­gan (15%).

• Two states report­ed few­er than 20 youth eman­ci­pat­ing from fos­ter care in 2023: Alas­ka (4) and Wyoming (14). These states also had among the low­est pro­por­tions in the country.

The U.S. Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices pub­lish­es an annu­al report to con­gress called Child Wel­fare Out­comes. Accord­ing to this report, kids who enter fos­ter care at age 12 or younger are less like­ly to age out of the sys­tem (just 16% eman­ci­pat­ed in 2023) ver­sus kids who enter fos­ter care after turn­ing 12 (85% emancipated).

How to Help Youth Aging out of Fos­ter Care

Child Wel­fare Infor­ma­tion Gate­way has pub­lished a report aimed at help­ing fos­ter par­ents sup­port young peo­ple who are tran­si­tion­ing out of care. This guid­ance includes help­ing youth:

• open and man­age check­ing and sav­ings accounts;
• explore var­i­ous edu­ca­tion­al or voca­tion­al options;
• col­lect and orga­nize per­son­al doc­u­ments, such as a Social Secu­ri­ty card, birth cer­tifi­cate, cit­i­zen­ship papers and school transcripts;
• nur­ture peer net­works by par­tic­i­pat­ing in group activ­i­ties with oth­er youth who share their expe­ri­ences and interests;
• under­stand how to file tax­es and main­tain a good cred­it score; and
• deter­mine if they are eli­gi­ble for cer­tain tuition waivers, finan­cial aid options or edu­ca­tion­al and train­ing vouch­ers based on their involve­ment in fos­ter care.

Expand­ing Fos­ter Care Sup­port Beyond Age 18

Anoth­er way to help youth approach­ing adult­hood is to con­firm whether or not they are eli­gi­ble for extend­ed fos­ter care sup­port. Con­tin­u­ing fos­ter care ser­vices beyond age 18 is asso­ci­at­ed with a num­ber of ben­e­fits, accord­ing to Chapin Hall researchers. For exam­ple: Each addi­tion­al year in extend­ed care trans­lates to a young per­son being more like­ly to: earn a high school cre­den­tial, be employed, enroll in col­lege, grow their earn­ings and have a social sup­port sys­tem in place. At the same time, each year in extend­ed fos­ter care saw a young per­son low­er their risk of being arrest­ed or strug­gling with food inse­cu­ri­ty and hous­ing instability.

The fed­er­al Fos­ter­ing Con­nec­tions to Suc­cess and Increas­ing Adop­tions Act of 2008 enabled states to be reim­bursed for some of the costs asso­ci­at­ed with extend­ing fos­ter care sup­port beyond age 18. As a con­di­tion of this exten­sion, youth must be work­ing, advanc­ing their edu­ca­tion, build­ing voca­tion­al skills or be con­firmed as unfit for work or school. Help­ing young peo­ple under­stand these eli­gi­bil­i­ty require­ments, which can vary by state, is key.

Nation­wide, 33 states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia, Puer­to Rico and nine tribes offer fed­er­al­ly reim­bursable extend­ed fos­ter care until age 21, although this sup­port is under­uti­lized, accord­ing to a 2023 brief by the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion. This sup­port may take a vari­ety of forms, such as: stay­ing in fos­ter care, liv­ing inde­pen­dent­ly with super­vi­sion or receiv­ing tran­si­tion­al liv­ing ser­vices. Addi­tion­al states offer their own plans or relat­ed ser­vices to help young peo­ple in care beyond age 18, as well.

Extend­ed fos­ter care pro­grams that include tan­gi­ble support—including direct finan­cial assis­tance, health insur­ance and access to sup­port ser­vices and case management—are par­tic­u­lar­ly ben­e­fi­cial for youth, accord­ing to research.

Read more about Extend­ed Fos­ter Care

Employ­ing Inno­v­a­tive Solu­tions to Sup­port Youth Exit­ing Care 

Child wel­fare lead­ers are also increas­ing­ly pio­neer­ing pro­grams and pilots in an effort to improve out­comes for eman­ci­pat­ed youth. Some of these inno­v­a­tive ideas include:

SOUL Fam­i­ly

In 2024, Kansas became the first state in the nation to pass leg­is­la­tion rec­og­niz­ing a new legal per­ma­nen­cy option — called SOUL Fam­i­ly — for old­er youth in fos­ter care. Intend­ed for youth ages 16 and old­er, this option enables youth to for­mal­ize a legal con­nec­tion to at least one car­ing adult while also main­tain­ing their fos­ter care ben­e­fits and their legal ties to birth family.

Learn more about the SOUL Fam­i­ly concept

Foun­da­tions for the Future Guar­an­teed Income Pilot

In late 2023, California’s San Fran­cis­co Human Ser­vices Agency launched Foun­da­tions for the Future, a guar­an­teed income pilot pro­gram for young peo­ple who have aged out of fos­ter care. Under the pro­gram, young adults will receive uncon­di­tion­al, reg­u­lar cash pay­ments of $1,200 a month as well as addi­tion­al sup­port­ive ser­vices — such as finan­cial lit­er­a­cy coach­ing and ben­e­fits coun­sel­ing — for 18 months.

Research teams will eval­u­ate the pilot to estab­lish its impact on the edu­ca­tion­al tra­jec­to­ries, earn­ings, hous­ing sta­bil­i­ty and well-being of the for­mer fos­ter youth involved.

Fos­ter­ing High­er Education

The Fos­ter­ing High­er Edu­ca­tion mod­el aims to help youth with fos­ter care expe­ri­ence both access and suc­ceed in high­er edu­ca­tion. The mod­el con­nects high-school juniors and seniors with tar­get­ed help — such as an edu­ca­tion advo­cate, oppor­tu­ni­ties for men­tor­ship and a spe­cial­ized cur­ricu­lum — to help them make the leap to college.

The first pilot study eval­u­at­ing the impact of the Fos­ter­ing High­er Edu­ca­tion mod­el found that enrolled stu­dents ​“expe­ri­enced notable reduc­tions in per­ceived bar­ri­ers to edu­ca­tion” and ​“made sub­stan­tial gains in par­tic­i­pat­ing in post-sec­ondary prepa­ra­tion tasks” when com­pared to the con­trol group. 

Read about the col­lege readi­ness mod­el pilot­ed by Jim Casey Youth Oppor­tu­ni­ties Ini­tia­tive^® sites

Explore more child wel­fare and fos­ter care statistics