January 8, 2024

Untapped Potential: Economic and Social Costs of Colorado’s Foster Youth

Just a small fraction of the state’s foster youth have an outsized impact on the economy. The lifetime social and economic costs range from $66 million to $73 million for the single group of 213 youth aging out of the foster system in an average year. 

Over ten years, this will equal $660 million to $730 million in lost economic and societal costs.

Bottom line: Coloradans are paying the societal and economic costs on the back end of a foster care intervention that did not lead to permanency. Policies which pay for performance at the front end and invest in high school graduation are key.

Outcomes for Foster Care vs. General Population

• Early parenthood – 13 times higher for women aging out of the foster care system.
• Homelessness – 6 times greater risk than the population at large.
• High school graduation – 30% of foster youth graduate from high school
  •  Youth experiencing homelessness graduated from high school at nearly twice that rate, 55.4%. 
• Incarceration – 26% of former foster youth in Colorado aged 21 in 2021 had been incarcerated in the last two years compared to 0.06%, for young people up to 21 years old in the general population.