John Kerry: “we currently have over 400,000 children in our foster care system due to abuse or neglect by their biological families…”

“we currently have over 400,000 children in our foster care system due to abuse or neglect by their biological families, with 104,000 eligible for adoption. Tragically every year nearly 28,000 of these children age out of our foster care system with no place to call home. On average, foster children spend over 3 years in the system and around 16 percent languish in the foster care system for over 5 years. Only around 3 percent start college and even fewer finish their degree. We must continue working to connect children in our foster system to a safe, loving, and permanent home while also doing more to address their educational outcomes. I am greatly concerned that too many of our Nation's foster youth are unable to appropriately access critical Federal programs that provide assistance to help increase their educational opportunities. Higher education can hold the key to a future of stability and it is unacceptable that many foster youth who are eligible for higher education funds, such as Education and Training Vouchers, ETV, and support through the John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program, are never told about these programs.…”