President Trump declared May 2026 National Foster Care Month, honoring the approximately 400,000 foster youth nationwide and the Americans who selflessly devote their lives to championing and nurturing them. As the Trump Administration works to build stable pathways to success for these young people and their families, one of the most powerful—and too often overlooked—drivers of that progress is our vigorous expansion of education freedom.
For most children, school provides rhythm and predictability. But for foster youth, it is often just another part of life that changes without warning.
That instability extends far beyond the classroom. Many children in foster care have uncertainty not only about where they will sleep from week to week, but whether the friendships they’ve formed or the trust they’ve built with teachers will disappear with the next placement. Each school transfer can strain relationships and disrupt progress, adding to the challenges students already face.
Being confined to a school unable to meet their needs can be just as destabilizing. By age 18, students spend roughly 13% of their waking hours in school, yet foster youth are three times less likely to graduate than their peers, and studies show that a staggering 25% are incarcerated after leaving care—clear evidence of how profoundly instability can undermine their futures.
This is not a failure of potential. It is a failure of policy. For too long, too many students in the foster system have been deprived of a reliable learning environment.
Yet foster youth can find hope in President Trump’s Education Freedom Tax Credit, which represents the largest expansion of education choice in American history and has already earned the support of 27 Governors from both sides of the aisle.
Established in the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, this program ensures that a child’s education is not determined by ZIP code, family income, or circumstance. It provides a dollar-for-dollar tax credit to individuals who contribute to scholarship-granting organizations, which provide critical education support – from scholarships to attend private schools to funds for after-school programs, special education support, equipment, and other essential services provided at a student’s existing public school.
For foster children and their guardians, the Education Freedom Tax Credit opens the door to safe, stable, high-quality education tailored to students’ unique needs and a future defined by possibility rather than uncertainty.
With a scholarship to a school or services of choice, students in foster care can maintain educational continuity even when other circumstances change. When placements shift, as they do for roughly one in three foster youth each year, the Education Freedom Tax Credit scholarship moves with them. That scholarship makes it possible for a young person who finds a teacher who understands them, a counselor who guides them, or a peer community that offers belonging to remain in that chosen school year after year.
Students in foster care who remain in their local public school equally benefit from the Education Freedom Tax Credit. They can access one‑on‑one tutoring, extended‑day programs, workforce training, and other supplementary services tailored to foster youth in public schools. Those connections to a personal tutor, to peers in an after‑school program, or to a hands‑on training opportunity provide more than academic help. They create constancy for young people navigating the turbulent waters of foster care, offering a safe harbor when so much else feels adrift.
The range of support made possible by this transformational tax credit allows individuals who care deeply about foster youth to contribute to, or even establish, specialized scholarship-granting organizations focused on this population so that foster youth have access to the support they need, wherever they learn.
The benefits that abound from this support are far-reaching. Greater continuity for students leads to stronger academic outcomes, improved behavior, and increased attendance. Students who experience stability are more likely to complete high school, pursue higher education or vocational training, and enter the workforce prepared and confident.
And at a time when America faces workforce shortages in healthcare, advanced manufacturing, teaching and the skilled trades, every child in the foster system who graduates and steps into a meaningful career strengthens the nation’s future. Education Freedom offers more than a seat in a consistent setting; it provides steady ground from which to build a life.
This is the promise of a Golden Age: a country that keeps faith in every child, including those who have too often gone overlooked. Through decisive leadership and practical reforms, we are fostering a brighter future not only for vulnerable children, but for America itself.
