By Maureen Ojiambo | Special to The OBSERVER
Next fall, Sacramento State will admit students who have experienced foster care and homelessness through the new Guardian Scholars Promise program.
On Nov. 13, President Dr. Luke Wood said in a statement that the university is committed to ensuring students get support and opportunities to pursue their dream. “We want to signal to foster youth everywhere that Sacramento State cares about you and your academic goals,” he said. Dr. Wood and his twin brother Josh both are products of the foster care system.
“We have staff and faculty who are dedicated to treating you with the dignity and respect you deserve,” Dr. Wood added. “You have a dedicated space on campus to build your own community, and you will have priority on-campus housing accommodations coming in.”
The new program, part of the Guardian Scholars Program, grants students who meet CSU admissions criteria guaranteed admission to the university.
Sac State said the program’s aim is to improve the success rate of former foster and unhoused youth by administering helpful services for learning and academic success.
“When you look at the dismal rates of foster youth actually graduating from college, it’s like 4% now,” said Linda Howe-Ram, director of Sac State’s Guardian Scholars Program. “It wasn’t until 2023 that Gov. Newsom provided funds for all the CSUs, community colleges, and UCs to have Guardian Scholars programs. We also serve students that really relied on donors before, so we already had a program pretty much running.”
Sac State had 195 students enrolled under the Guardian Scholars’ Program in fall 2024, up from 151 the previous year.
Criminal justice major Traneisia Jones, 22, is a transfer student from Mobile, Alabama. Having been in foster care since age 9, she said education was her only hope. “So, I’ve been in foster care all my life and education has always been my only support,” Jones said. “And none of my family have been to college or graduated, so I’ve always been interested in my education and overcoming the barriers that I face to not only help myself and educate myself, but to educate other people.”
Jones said she faced several challenges as she changed homes four times, including “financial instability, abuse, instability within housing placement, because I’ve been in a few placements while in foster care, as well as just not having a support system. And outside of GSP, I don’t have a support system.”
Students in the Guardian Scholars Program highlighted some of the challenges they faced as many were unable to make ends meet.
Jarred Holloway, 25, a management information systems major, said Sac State was not his first choice, but the program has made him feel at home.
“The challenges for me were not having the greatest system because then I didn’t really have anybody to show me how to get to where I am now,” he said. “It was even better that I was able to find that later in my life after high school. And that only added to the motivation to get my education.”
Emmanuel Fadollone, 26, a master’s student in higher education and policy studies, said the program has helped him in multiple ways. “Before the Guardian Scholars Program, it was just uncertainty,” he said. “As I became an adult and did my community college, I was kind of financially illiterate, too, just in terms of how college works.”
The “Guardian Scholars Promise” is also available to youth who have experienced homelessness under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
Howe-Ram said every school at Sac State should have a McKinney-Vento liaison so that students would have a chance to be included in the program when enrolled.
“Right now, with the new initiative that President Wood just announced, we’ve created a web page that explains how students can get into our program, which is pretty easy,” she said, “You register for our program, it’s not an application, we verify that you are a current or former foster youth, and we verify that you are actually a McKinney-Vento student.”
Sac State is assuring the foster youth of their academic goals and that the university’s mission is to ensure students in the Guardian Scholars Program have a safe space to build a community they will all belong to.
“In our program, we have program coordinators that work one-on-one with our students with any need that they have. So, whether it be academic or professional or personal, whatever their needs are,” Howe-Ram said.
Students in the program say career opportunities should be presented to them as soon as possible.
“I like to crave a sense of support to find a career in terms of, you know, more opportunities being open. I kind of get afraid that I won’t be able to find that opportunity here in my junior year,” Holloway said.
Said Jones: “I know there’s a lot of scholarships out there, but I feel like in certain departments, for foster youth there aren’t many scholarships, but I feel like there could be more.”
Sac State also partners with other organizations such as the new United Way Guaranteed Income Program, which since has benefited 10 Guardian Scholars who in April began receiving $500 monthly for 12 months.
“We make sure that our students are getting the services they need … because a lot of times we are their only support system,” Howe-Ram said. “So, with that particular initiative, it really helped out because we were able to choose 10 scholars to actually receive this guaranteed income for housing for one year.”
Students say professional development is a great opportunity in their career path. They call on the university to focus on ensuring that graduates are ready for the job market.
“Students may not just have the tools to properly go right into the professional realm,” Fadollone said. “We can focus on even starting from sophomore year or junior year, some workshops with career development … so that students can get a baseline for professional development. I think that’d be a huge advantage.”
Howe-Ram advocates for a better support system for Sac State’s Guardian Scholars, noting that they have unique challenges.
“And when we’re talking about barriers or issues, housing always comes up as number one,” she said. “It’s housing and mental health services.”
The program has other new collaborations this year such as the Independent Living Program, which provides current and former foster youth ages 16-21 support to help them achieve self-sufficiency prior to, and after exiting the foster care system.
“We also have a Youth Help Network,” Howe-Ram said. “They come in once a week for our students and they work on [connecting them with] housing and mental health services.”
The Guardian Scholars student population is demographically distinct, comprising 30% Black students, 21% white, 21% Latino, 17% multiracial, 6% Asian, and 5% others. The gender breakdown is 67% female, 28% male, and 4% identifying as other. Howe-Ram said most major in criminal justice, psychology, health science, sociology and social work.
Support for this Sacramento OBSERVER article was provided to Word In Black (WIB) by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. WIB is a collaborative of 10 Black-owned media that includes print and digital partners.