Cuyahoga Community

College

Foster Scholars Initiative

About our College

About Our College Tri-C serves more than 60,000 students each year

in more than 140 degree and certificate

programs.

More than 40,000 Tri-C students have successfully

transferred to four-year colleges/universities in the

past five years. 

More than 500,000

residents attend

Tri-C-sponsored

cultural and

community programs

each year.

Our Accomplishments• Tri-C ranks in the Top 50 (out of 1,200)

community colleges nationally in awarding

degrees.

• Over the last five years, more than 4,000

students graduated Tri-C in the Health Careers

and Nursing.

For the fifth consecutive year, GI Jobs Magazine

has named Tri-C a “Military Friendly School.”

In 2012, more than 1,000 local companies hired

Tri-C students or trained their workers at Tri-C.

Our Economic Impact More than 85% of Tri-C graduates continue to work

and live in Northeast Ohio.

For every $1 of Cuyahoga County support for Tri-C,

the College provides a return of $10 in economic

benefit to the county.

The combined annual impact of Tri-C operations and

Tri-C student /alumni increased earnings contributes

$865 million annually to Cuyahoga County.

Over 7,000 Tri-C students have benefited from more

than $5 million scholarship dollars in the last five

years.

Foster Scholars Initiative

With support from Ohio Reach Tri-C will enhance support to former

foster youth or foster youth who are enrolled at Cuyahoga Community

College. The goal is to improve the retention and completion rate for

former foster youth at the collegiate level.

 

The Ohio Reach grant will aid in mentoring program development and

enhancing other college services to support foster scholars.

Successes

Established a cross functional college team with executive leadership

to implement the foster scholars initiative

Identified 121 students who have aged out of Foster Care and have

been enrolled in the college over the last two years

Established a Foster Scholars website

http://www.tri-c.edu/student-resources/foster-youth-scholars.html

Named campus liaisons (already working with foster scholars)

Creating a mentoring program

Cultivating internal and external partners

Challenges

Phone numbers and addresses can change often, making it difficult to

stay in contact with foster scholars

Like many college students, foster scholars do not always check their

college e-mail on a regular basis

Many foster scholars stop in and out of college for a variety of reasons.

This makes it difficult to provide continuity of services

Next Steps

Recruit Foster Scholars to serve on a student advisory committee

Provide mentor training

Call together an external partners meeting in early spring

Develop a marketing campaign to encourage more foster scholars to

enroll in college and/or workforce training