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At a time when budgets are tight, the state is launching a new investment program of sorts. It's offering college scholarships to several of Utah's most vulnerable young people, and the payoffs are already coming in.
Few people view studying for finals as a dream come true, but Heather Todd-O'Brien sees it that way. She was about to age out of the state's foster care system when she qualified for a new scholarship.
"It's helped us live life and still be able to go to school," she said.
As a child, she was passed around to relatives until she ended up in foster care. As she grew older, she knew the future looked bleak.
The Utah Department of Human Services found 37 percent of kids who aged out of foster care over their five-year study were arrested within three years. None of them finished college. Half of them received food stamps.
Todd-O'Brien said, "Without these kinds of scholarships, they're going to be working dead-end jobs, fast foods, things like that. They are basically pushed out in the world."
With her assigned mentor and a scholarship that pays for school and some living expenses, she plans to not become one of those numbers. She studies interpreting for American Sign Language, does volunteer training in that area and works two jobs.
Her mentor, Ana Fillingim, said, "It's beautiful to see. It's like she's blooming into this wonderful adult."
Though relationships and material things have come and gone in this girl's life, they both hope education can become a constant.
The Transition to Adult Living Scholarship evolved from work started by then Governor Olene Walker. The funds come from Utah's 529 college savings program.
