Free tuition for former kids in care 'like a dream come true'

Ten years ago, Levon Beck didn't know if she'd ever graduate from high school, let alone attend college or begin to dream of something beyond that.

At a time when most 18-year-olds are thinking of proms and frosh week or entering the workforce, Beck was in and out of mental health care, grappling with issues stemming from trauma in her early years.

It wasn't until last year that Beck, now 28, could finally hold her high school diploma and say, "I did it."

"It was one of the happiest moments because it's finally like, I'm not going to let the past win. I'm stronger than my circumstances and I can overcome it," she said.

Before her graduation from the adult learning program at the Nova Scotia Community College — a program that helps adults get their high school diploma — one of her instructors asked what she would do afterward. But financially, post-secondary education seemed like an unattainable goal.

This fall, however, Beck became part of a new program at the community college, one of a growing number of post-secondary institutions in Canada that offer tuition support to people who were once in the child welfare system. Mount Saint Vincent University, Dalhousie University, the University of King's College and Saint Mary's University have announced similar programs over the past year.

Beck was in foster care before she was adopted at the age of four. She receives disability support payments because she lives with dissociative identity disorder, a condition likely caused by severe trauma in early childhood, so her income would not allow her to manage living expenses and tuition.