Twenty years ago, CAI produced a groundbreaking series, “Two Cape Cods: Hidden Poverty on the Cape and Islands.” It revealed the reality of life in a place outsiders view as a wealthy playground. This week, we’re revisiting some of the issues the series brought to light. CAI’s Jennette Barnes spoke with a key figure from the original series to find out where he is now — and why many youth who have been in foster care need more support to finish their education.
When we first met Aaron Maloy 20 years ago, he was fresh out of college, but still emerging from a life spent in foster care from the age of 12.
Today, he’s a nurse practitioner, with his own practice in Plymouth.
A piece of artwork on his office wall shows a humpback whale gently raising its face out of the water to touch a boy’s hand. What a contrast with the tumult of Maloy’s early life, living with his mother on the Mid Cape.
“I’d steal if I was hungry,” he recalled. “There was — we had no food in our house. Like, our pantry was empty. Like, our toilet didn't work.”
But poverty does not land you in foster care. Abuse and neglect do.
One day, when he was 12, Maloy fled from his mother’s home to a fire station, pleading for help.
He lived in several foster homes in his teens. State aid allowed him to go to UMass Amherst.
Back on the Cape after college, he took a job in a medical office. The nurses and doctors were kind to him, and one particular occasion is indelible in his memory.
“She invited me over her house, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, like the most popular doctor in Provincetown invited me to her house! And she made me food!’”
Somewhere between the inspiration from the staff and his own experience with inadequate healthcare as a child, Maloy found his life’s work: helping marginalized people get better care.
"We had no food in our house. Like, our pantry was empty."
His master’s-level credential makes him an outlier. Young people who have been in foster care are some of the most educationally disadvantaged in the United States, even on Cape Cod. Money is part of it, but sometimes what they need most are social supports.
Though the high school graduation rate for Massachusetts foster youth has improved by 13% since 2020, it remains low, and college completion rates are far lower.
Of nearly 900 high school seniors in foster care in the state last year, less than two-thirds graduated. That’s lower than any other demographic group, including students who are homeless.
Rebecca Brink, assistant commissioner of program support at the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, said the agency works hard to place children with relatives and keep them connected to their communities.
She said that sometimes, placing a child in the best foster home means the child changes schools, which adds academic strain on top of past trauma.
Lemar Brown, 21, grew up on Cape Cod and entered foster care at 15. Though he made it to college, he had trouble balancing academics and a social life.
“I definitely thought I was way more ready than I 100% was, but I stuck through it for a year and a semester,” he said.
“I definitely thought I was way more ready."
He dropped out of UMass Dartmouth, then tried Cape Cod Community College, and left there as well.
Now, Brown lives in a shared house for youth and young adults in Hyannis, opened last year by the nonprofit group Housing Assistance. He can stay up to two years and benefit from a case manager’s guidance.
He enrolled in an online program to become a veterinary technician.
“I feel like I want to prove myself, but I know my mom … I know she's proud of me no matter what I do, but I know she would be happy with a degree as well,” he said.
Massachusetts keeps no record of how many foster youth earn a college degree.
Nathanael Okpych, associate professor of social work at the University of Connecticut, studies educational outcomes among people who have spent time in foster care. His research shows that across U.S. regions where data are available, 8 to 12% of foster youth graduate from college — within not four years, but six.
“For youth in foster care, it tends to take a little bit longer,” he said. “So you really need that longer timeframe to capture graduation rates.”
Okpych said some college aid programs for foster youth need work — like the $5,000 federal voucher that hasn’t increased in value in 24 years. And he said more schools should offer on-campus mentorship to help foster youth access tutoring, manage their time, and feel less isolated.
“Just getting into the rhythm of college, demystifying all that — it’s critical,” he said. “That could make or break their chances of graduating college.”
Even for our successful nurse practitioner, Aaron Maloy, a brief stint leaving foster care meant the last place he slept the week before UMass was in his car.
“I remember I … went to work like the next morning, like — unshowered. And then I was off to UMass Amherst.”
Higher education helps foster youth from Cape Cod and elsewhere find their way in the world. But the system has a long way to go to pick graduation rates up off the floor.
