Pathways to Higher Education for Juvenile Justice Involved Youth

Youth Law Center’s Pathways to Higher Education advocacy is transforming how California supports young people impacted by the juvenile justice system. Our work envisions community colleges not only as institutions of learning, but as powerful alternatives to incarceration- places where youth can access opportunity, stability, and a second chance.

Youth Law Center launched this advocacy in 2018 to ensure that justice-involved youth have meaningful pathways to college and career. We’ve worked to expand access to high-quality postsecondary education, build public will, create a statewide infrastructure of support, and secure the legal and financial tools needed to make success possible.

Our accomplishments include:

• Establishing a statewide legal and policy framework that mandates postsecondary education access in detention facilities, including internet connectivity, educational transition planning, and dual enrollment opportunities.
• Securing historic state investments: $10 million in ongoing funding through the Rising Scholars Network (2021), followed by an unprecedented $15 million in dedicated annual funding (2022) to support 44 community colleges serving justice-impacted youth.
• Embedding juvenile justice-involved youth in statewide community college efforts through partnerships with the Chancellor’s Office, Foundation for California Community Colleges, and Rising Scholars Network.
• Expanding financial aid access by working with the California Student Aid Commission to include detained youth in CalGrant eligibility and publishing the first financial aid guide tailored for justice-involved youth.
• Growing a powerful network of directly impacted youth, legal advocates, colleges, probation agencies, and community-based organizations committed to sharing best practices and reimagining reentry through education.

Through Pathways to Higher Education, we are building a future where justice-involved youth are equipped not only to succeed, but to lead.

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.

“The Youth Law Center is truly a cornerstone organization, successfully building a network of nonprofit and public sector advocates committed to promoting pathways to and through postsecondary education for youth connected to the juvenile justice system.”

– Jeffrey Kim, Program Officer, The California Wellness Foundation

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