Thousands of Foster Youth Exit System Without Enough Support In Adulthood

Why It Matters

More than 15,000 young people aged out of foster care in FY2025, leaving the system without a permanent family and, in many cases, without the tools to survive on their own. A newly updated Congressional Research Service report on the John H. Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood offers a sobering look at the federal government's primary tool for helping these young people and the significant gaps that remain.

The Chafee Foster Care Program is the federal government's main vehicle for helping current and former foster youth navigate the transition to adulthood. The program funds everything from housing assistance and life skills training to education vouchers and career services. But the CRS report makes clear that the program is not reaching enough of the young people it is designed to serve.

Less than a quarter of eligible youth ages 14 to 21 received transition services in FY2021. A study of the Education and Training Voucher component in 10 states found that nearly two-thirds of those eligible and enrolled in college were not awarded or did not use a voucher. This represents a structural gap between what the program promises and what it delivers, and the consequences show up in the data.

Among foster youth who experienced care at age 17 and reached age 21 in FY2021, 79 percent had a high school diploma, GED, or higher certification, compared to an estimated 92 percent among their peers in the general population. Just 24 percent were enrolled in postsecondary education or training, versus 50 percent of their peers. And 35 percent had ever been incarcerated.

The Big Picture

The Chafee program, authorized under Title IV-E, Section 477 of the Social Security Act, was established by the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999 and has been amended five times since, most recently in 2018 by the Family First Prevention Services Act. It provides flexible federal grants to states, territories, and tribal entities to fund a broad range of supports for foster youth transitioning to adulthood, including educational assistance, career services, life skills training, preventive health activities, and room and board.

The program carries $143 million annually in mandatory funding. Its Education and Training Voucher component is funded separately on a discretionary basis, authorized at up to $60 million annually, though the actual appropriation has consistently fallen short of that ceiling. In FY2026, Congress appropriated approximately $44 million for the vouchers.

Grantees have considerable flexibility in how they administer the program, but they are required to provide a 20 percent non-federal match to receive their full federal allotments. They must also spend their funding within a two-year window or risk having unspent dollars redistributed to other grantees.

Where the Money Goes

A 2025 Government Accountability Office report cited in the CRS analysis found that grantees failed to spend approximately five percent of annual Chafee funding (more than $9 million per year) in each fiscal year from FY2019 through FY2022. Most of that money was subsequently redistributed and used. But roughly $670,000 in FY2020 funding, nearly all of it from the Education and Training Voucher program, ultimately went unspent and was returned to the U.S. Treasury.

The pattern of unspent funds points to a persistent challenge: the administrative and matching requirements can be difficult for some grantees to meet, particularly smaller or under-resourced ones. Meanwhile, the young people the program is designed to serve are not receiving the services they are eligible for.

On September 30, 2025, more than 102,000 young people aged 14 or older were in foster care. The gap between that population and the roughly 93,000 young people reported as receiving independent living services through the program's tracking database in FY2023 reflects how much ground remains to be covered.

Tracking Outcomes

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services administers the Chafee program through its Administration for Children and Families. In response to a statutory requirement, HHS established the National Youth in Transition Database to track the characteristics, service receipt, and outcomes of current and former foster youth. Through that system, grantees reported providing services to more than 93,000 young people ages 14 to 26 in FY2023, more than two-thirds of whom were still in foster care when they were served.

But the CRS report notes that evidence on the effectiveness of specific Chafee-funded activities remains limited. HHS is described as exploring new approaches to testing promising programs, services, and practices for young people transitioning out of foster care, an acknowledgment that the program has operated for more than two decades with incomplete knowledge of what actually works.

Political Stakes

For the Administration

The Trump Administration has signaled its intentions for the program through two mechanisms: an executive order titled "Fostering the Future for American Children and Families" and its FY2027 budget request. According to the CRS report, these proposals generally seek to encourage education, employment, and "self-sufficiency" among foster youth - framing consistent with the administration's broader philosophy of reducing government dependency and emphasizing workforce participation.

That framing stands in contrast to the direction the Biden Administration had been moving. Following pandemic-era expansions enacted under the Supporting Foster Youth and Families Through the Pandemic Act, which temporarily increased funding, expanded eligibility, and broadened how funds could be used, the Biden Administration had proposed making those flexibilities permanent. The Trump Administration's approach does not appear to follow that path.

The tension is significant. The outcome data in the CRS report (a 35 percent incarceration rate, postsecondary enrollment less than half the rate of peers, and widespread underutilization of available vouchers) make a case for expanded investment and eligibility. The administration's emphasis on self-sufficiency and its broader budget posture point in a different direction.

Congress Moves Ahead

Whatever the administration's posture, Congress has moved. In May 2026, the House passed H.R. 7432 with bipartisan support. The bill, as amended, would make changes to the Chafee program related to eligibility, Education and Training Voucher use of funds, and outreach, housing supportive services, youth access to legal counseling, supports for parenting and expectant youth, and facilitating supportive relationships for young people.

The bipartisan nature of the House vote is notable. Foster care policy has historically attracted cross-aisle support, and the outcome data in the CRS report provide political cover for members on both sides who want to act. The harder test will come in the Senate, where the bill's prospects remain unclear, and in any eventual negotiation with an administration whose budget priorities may not align with expanded program commitments.

For Democrats, the report's data on poor outcomes and underutilization of services provides a clear argument for more investment and broader eligibility. For Republicans, the emphasis on education, employment, and self-sufficiency offers a framework for supporting the program without appearing to expand the welfare state. The question is whether those two framings can be reconciled in a final bill.

The Bottom Line

The CRS report on the Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood documents a program that is doing meaningful work for a vulnerable population, and falling well short of what is needed. The outcome gaps are wide, the reach is limited, and the evidence base for what works remains thin after more than two decades.

The House has passed a bipartisan bill that would update the program in significant ways. The Trump Administration has signaled its own priorities through an executive order and budget request. Those two tracks are not obviously aligned, and the Senate has not yet acted.

For the more than 100,000 young people currently in foster care who will one day age out of the system, the policy decisions made in the coming months will have direct consequences on whether they find housing, finish school, find work, and avoid incarceration. The CRS report makes clear that the current program, as structured and funded, is not closing those gaps on its own.

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