Fostering futures
There are over 60,000 youth in the California foster care system, and thanks to a new bill, everyone can attend college for free. The bill, SB 307, authored by Senator Angelique Ashby (D-Sacramento), was signed into the state budget by Governor Gavin Newsom last week, allocating 25 million dollars to the Fostering Futures program. Foster youth will have the entire cost covered (including books, food, and lodging) if they attend the University of California, California State University, or California community college.
This bill is a victory, not just for the 60,000 youth whose futures have now been expanded to various beautiful possibilities, but for our society. Fascist minds continue to infect our education system with book bans, egregious and racist rewrites of history, as well as overturning of Affirmative action and President Biden’s original student loan plan because they know an educated society does not and will not condone the bigotry they wish they continue to operate in. Promising 60,000 youth that financial barriers will not burden them is 60,000 victories over the plague of indoctrination and educational gatekeeping, and deserve all the more applause.
“I applaud Governor Gavin Newsom and Senator Ashby’s initiative to provide college-level public education to foster children. Foster children in the United States have already suffered so many setbacks and often come from families where there is abuse and neglect and then go into a foster care system with more abuse and neglect. It is time to lift these kids and realize it by lifting all the children in the United States. We are improving our society. We are reducing the inmate population, reducing the long-term effects of poverty, reducing violence on the streets, and improving the quality of life for all of us.”
Jay Paul Deratany