After years of searching — more than 30 foster homes and shelters, dozens of fights, too many schools to count — Billi Jo Cauley found a home.
“This was where I belonged,” she said of her decision to enroll at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville.
Cauley is still several years away from earning a degree, but she's already beaten the odds: After growing up in the foster care system, she is in college.
“In foster homes, you're just a number,” the 18-year-old said. “I want someone to be proud of me.”
No one knows exactly how many former foster children graduate from college, but studies show they are less likely to graduate from high school than other kids and far less likely to pursue higher education.
One study by a University of Chicago think tank found just 6 percent had a two- or four-year degree by age 23.
Now Sam Houston State and a handful of other Texas colleges are trying to improve those odds, making it easier for the students to meet the financial, academic and social challenges that can derail their dreams.
“For any student, the transition from high school to college is major,” said Keri Rogers, assistant vice president of academic affairs at SHSU. “This group of students, they have no support system at all. They don't have a cheerleader.”
But many do have the desire to succeed.
“I've slept at bus stops, crack houses, shelters. That wasn't what I wanted for the rest of my life,” said JaCola Caldwell, who entered foster care at 14 and is now a freshman at the campus in Huntsville. “I knew the way to make it better was education