WASHINGTON, D.C. — Eugenia Wallace headed off to college early at age 16—an achievement for any adolescent—and even more so for someone who grew up in foster care. But even more obstacles lay ahead.

“I quickly was met with reality. At 16, I had to find a place to lay my head every semester,” said Wallace, who now serves as a representative for the National Foster Youth Institute.

Wallace was in Washington, D.C. earlier this month to promote a proposed law to help students like her in the future, by allowing foster care and emancipated youth to use U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Housing Choice Voucher Program, also known as Section 8 vouchers, to pay for college housing. That includes on-campus housing, such as dorms, and off-campus housing.

“These young people already face many barriers to higher education. Housing costs should absolutely not be one of them,” said Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio.

Less than 3% of foster youth graduate from college by the age of 26, according to the Court Appointed Special Advocates Guardians Ad Litem (CASA/GAL) Association.

To ease one of the burdens foster youth face to attend college, Reps. Beatty and Greg Landsman, D-Ohio, teamed up with two Republicans to co-sponsor the Campus Housing Affordability Act.

“[It’s for] kids who have worked really hard and have exceptional talent and want to go to college and want to do so in a way, where they're going to succeed,” Landsman said.

Nationally, 8% of undergraduate students struggle with housing instability, according to a 2020 poll by the National Center for Education Statistics.

The statistic comes as the average cost of tuition and fees at universities has risen 17% from 2010 to 2021.