For two decades, the University of California, Berkeley’s Hope Scholars program has provided support for students with experience in foster care or who were not raised by their biological parents. The program began in 2005 as the Cal Independent Scholars Network, started by university housing employee Michelle Kniffin after learning about the challenges faced by students coming from foster backgrounds.
Tristan Lombard, an early participant, described his initial skepticism about the program: “If the university had not invested in someone like me and given me the financial aid, given me just some bed sheets, a welcome week, my life could have gone a very different route.” He later graduated and pursued a career in marketing consulting.
Now called Hope Scholars and led by director Charly King Beavers since 2020, the initiative has grown to include four full-time staff members and has supported more than 360 students over its history. In recent years, enrollment tripled between 2020 and 2022. The program now extends its services to graduate students and has expanded staffing and office space.
At a November anniversary event marking 20 years of Hope Scholars, Beavers said: “20 years of proving that when we invest in students who have experienced foster care or childhood homelessness, we are investing in brilliance, in leaders, in scholars and changemakers.”
Hope Scholars offers holistic support including financial stipends—$3,000 for first-year participants and $2,000 thereafter—a food pantry, move-in packages with dorm essentials, access to mental health clinicians and academic counselors (some of whom are alumni), peer mentorship programs, networking events with professionals and retired faculty members, internship opportunities and funding for professional development needs such as test fees or travel.
Beavers highlighted how many former foster youth face barriers navigating higher education: “You’re asking students who’ve moved through multiple schools and foster homes—who’ve faced instability and broken support systems—to arrive at one of the most demanding universities and already know how to succeed. Foster youth often don’t have someone they can turn to and ask, ‘How did you do this?’”
Peer advisor Alexis Wood shared her own difficulties transitioning into college life before finding community at UC Berkeley: “I just had no concept of what a college experience even looked like.” She is now involved as a mentor for other graduate students.
Current senior Erick Mendes serves as another peer adviser. He reflected on his journey from entering foster care at age five to being on track to become the first college graduate in his biological family: “People who grew up in the foster care system … aren’t supposed to succeed. People here are spectacular and have beaten all the odds.”
The anniversary celebration featured alumni panelists working across various fields—including therapy, engineering and student services—who credited Hope Scholars with helping them overcome academic setbacks. Sonia Aldape said: “It is also one of the reasons I ultimately became a therapist because I saw the great impact it had simply being an emotionally supportive space.”
At the event’s close Beavers announced that Hope Scholars would triple its office space at UC Berkeley’s César Chavez Student Center due to increased demand.
Reflecting on renaming the program in 2015 she concluded: “Hope is not a passive word; it’s not something to wait for. It’s something we build every day together. It’s what carried our students through uncertainty and challenge. It’s what turned this small program into a legacy.”
