HAMPTON — Since 2015, Thomas Nelson Community College has participated in the Great Expectations program which is targeted at helping young people leaving foster care in Virginia to receive the higher education they need to succeed in life.
According to TNCC’s website, 70 percent of foster youth who access higher education do so through community colleges so by having this program at TNCC, these youth will get the assistance they need.
The program
Great Expectations started out in 2008 operating at five of Virginia’s 23 community colleges, today that number has grown to 18.
They have served a total of 1,200 youth since the program began.
As of the summer of 2018, there were 17 students enrolled in the program at TNCC.
In addition to those 17, there are four high school students and two workforce students that TNCC is assisting.
So far TNCC has assisted more than 100 students with their college careers.
Each program is run with funds from the Virginia Foundation for Community College Education, The Commonwealth of Virginia and notable partners.
In 2015 the program ran on $25,000 but Sonja Vega, Great Expectations coach at TNCC, said that while funding information for this year has not yet been calculated, the amount of money has been less in years since 2015.
Great Expectations at TNCC
Each community college has a coach dedicated to running the program and overseeing the students they are assisting.
Vega is currently the Interim Great Expectations Coach, starting in July 2018.
She said that while she is the first point of contact for these students, the program is within the Student Services/Care department at TNCC.
A few examples of the ways they help the students are by giving bus passes out to those needing help with transportation, assisting with emergency housing, referring them to the food pantry, helping with FAFSA paperwork, academic advising and more, Vega said.
“We do our best to support our students through the process,” she said.
The age group of these students is 17-24 and the requirements to be enrolled in the program are that you were either in foster care at any point or were a late-age adoption.
One particular struggle that is unique to these students is the gaps in their paperwork that make signing up for financial aid difficult, Vega said.
She said a lot of times the student may have moved around a lot and finding the correct documentation can be a challenge, so the program assists them in completing that paperwork.
For high school students who are either in foster care or are late-age adopted, their caregivers may need help getting that student ready for college, Vega said.
The Great Expectations program allows TNCC to help high school students prepare for college by offering FAFSA assistance, college application help, workshopping skills and figuring out testing requirements.
“The goal for the program is to have Great Expectations available and easily accessible for all of Virginia’s foster youth,” Vega said. “We hope to provide services to 50 percent of the foster youth in our service area.”
To learn more about the Great Expectations program at TNCC, click here.
