Transition to Independence (TIP) Wayne State: Effects on Academic Outcomes of College-Enrolled Students With Lived Experience in Foster Care

Postsecondary students with foster care backgrounds face a range of unique challenges to academic engagement and success. Many campuses have introduced specialized support programs for these students, but few have been rigorously tested. This study is one of the first examinations of a campus support program to use a quasiexperimental design, including propensity score matching, to evaluate the efficacy of a campus support program for enrolled college students who have lived experience in foster care. The Transition to Independence Program (TIP) Wayne State participants were compared to other students with lived experience in foster care not enrolled in the program as well as a sample of TRIO-eligible (low-income, first-generation) students without foster care experience (N = 331). TIP Wayne State is a program intervention that uses campus champions and includes targeted financial aid, concrete supports, academic coaching, and university/community-level navigation support. Overall, analysis indicated that TIP Wayne State students were significantly more likely to be retained than students with lived experience in foster care who were not engaged with the program, and TIP Wayne State-enrolled students were retained at a similar level as their nonfoster TRIO-eligible peers. This study finds that targeted financial aid coupled with concrete supports, structured coaching, and system navigation approaches can positively impact retention and degree completion for students with lived experience in foster care. Recommendations for policy and practice are also offered.