Who is eligible for the the education and training voucher?

You were in the Arizona foster care system on or after your 16th birthday. You are a United States citizen or a qualified non citizen. You are an Arizona resident. Your personal assets are under $10,000. You are enrolled in a degree, certificate, or other accredited program. You are making satisfactory academic progress. You have used fewer than 5 years of voucher funding.

When does the the education and training voucher close?

Your 26th birthday, and the 5 year funding cap, whichever comes first. Funding is also first come, first served in each academic year, so applying early in the cycle matters.

The Education and Training Voucher

Up to $5,000 a year for school costs, and unlike the tuition waiver it can pay for rent, food, a laptop, and childcare. It runs to your 26th birthday.

Formally, the Arizona Chafee Education and Training Voucher Program.

What it is worth: Up to $5,000 per academic year, for up to 5 years of funding. The 5 years do not have to be consecutive.
Who decides: The Arizona Department of Child Safety funds it. Applications are administered through the Education and Training Voucher program contractor.
The date that matters: Your 26th birthday, and the 5 year funding cap, whichever comes first. Funding is also first come, first served in each academic year, so applying early in the cycle matters.

Eligibility

Whether this is yours

You were in the Arizona foster care system on or after your 16th birthday.
You are a United States citizen or a qualified non citizen.
You are an Arizona resident.
Your personal assets are under $10,000.
You are enrolled in a degree, certificate, or other accredited program.
You are making satisfactory academic progress.
You have used fewer than 5 years of voucher funding.

Limits

What it will not cover

Stated plainly, because planning around a gap you know about is possible and planning around one you find out about in November is not.

More than $5,000 in any one academic year.
More than 5 years of funding in total.
Costs after your 26th birthday.

How to claim it

What you actually do

1Apply through the Arizona Education and Training Voucher application, administered by Foster Success.
2Reapply every academic year. It does not renew on its own.
3Apply as early in the funding cycle as you can, because awards are first come, first served and the pool is a fixed federal allocation.

Watch for

The things people get caught by

These are the misunderstandings that cost people money, not general advice.

This is the one that pays for living costs. The tuition waiver pays tuition. The voucher can cover rent, food, transportation, a computer, and childcare.
Using the voucher does not reduce your tuition waiver. The statute protects that specifically.
The 5 year cap counts years you received funding, not years you were enrolled. Taking a term off does not spend a year.
It runs to 26, three years past the tuition waiver. If you are 23 and just starting, this is the one still open to you.

Put this on a calendar

A deadline you know about and a deadline you remember are different things. The timing map takes one date and gives you the next twelve months, with nothing saved and no account required.

Build your timing map See the other four

Sources

Where this comes from

Not yet verified at the source

We have not checked this page against the current Arizona Education and Training Voucher program page or the Department of Child Safety Young Adult Program scholarship guide. Separately, the contact telephone number returned by search carries an out of state area code, so it was deliberately left off this page until somebody confirms it. Until we have, confirm anything time sensitive with the office named above before you rely on it.