Pathways to Higher Education

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Since 1978, Youth Law Center has fought to ensure quality education for youth in juvenile justice and foster care systems. Though key to rehabilitation, education has often been inadequate and under-resourced, especially in locked detention and congregate care facilities. There has been little attention, if any, to postsecondary education. Outside of detention facilities, youth impacted by the juvenile justice system are often excluded from existing postsecondary programs focused on adults impacted by the criminal justice system and/or postsecondary programs for youth in foster care. Youth Law Center’s vision is that California community colleges will serve as the community institution that can be an alternative to the often punitive and ineffective youth justice system, and provide true rehabilitation and access to long term economic opportunities for youth.

The Youth Law Center’s advocacy has developed new economic and career opportunities for the approximately 30,000 youth who are referred to California probation departments annually – the vast majority Black and Latinx. Providing youth in the juvenile justice system with a path to postsecondary education will shrink the population in detention (as more youth can use community colleges to avoid incarceration or secure release), provide an effective intervention that is truly rehabilitative and offers youth a pathway to economic freedom, and divert youth from entering the adult criminal justice system.

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The work of our Pathways to Higher Education Project has been catalyzed by generous and multi-year funding from the California Wellness Foundation.

Pathways to Higher Education Staff