LGBTQ+ Youth Face Unique Struggles on Path to Education

Feb­ru­ary 28, 2025 | By Jeff Spitko

For teens, it’s often a choice between hiding their authentic selves or funding their future by themselves.

 

Decisions.

You and I will both make over a thou­sand of them today – from what to eat for break­fast to what to watch on tv tonight.

Some deci­sions are sim­ple and have no risk. But oth­ers – like choos­ing a col­lege – can shape the rest of a young person’s life.

For LGBTQ+ (les­bian, gay, bisex­u­al, trans­gen­der, queer) youth, the list of deci­sions they make has addi­tion­al com­plex­i­ties. Among the most dif­fi­cult of those… do I risk los­ing the love and sup­port of my fam­i­ly?

Should I Stay In The Closet or Come Out?

Before decid­ing where to attend col­lege or what to major in, LGBTQ+ youth often face a big­ger deci­sion: Should I come out to my fam­i­ly?

When I was 17, I used to spend weeks prepar­ing myself for “the talk”.

My plan seemed to change dai­ly. Should I tell my dad first? Then my mom after? Do I speak with them both togeth­er? Does it need to be a sit-down con­ver­sa­tion? Would it go smoother if I just wrote them a let­ter?

Com­ing out was an ever-chang­ing puz­zle – one that I ulti­mate­ly decid­ed I was not ready to solve as a teenag­er. The stress was too over­whelm­ing.

As I entered col­lege, I had a con­stant vision of what I felt would hap­pen if I told peo­ple I was gay. Even though my fam­i­ly had shown me noth­ing but love for 18 years, I kept pic­tur­ing my par­ents dis­own­ing me. My sib­lings hat­ing me. And my best friends nev­er speak­ing to me again.

I made the per­son­al deci­sion to wait until after col­lege to come out because I need­ed that time to fig­ure out my jour­ney. And luck­i­ly, when the time came to have “the talk”, my fam­i­ly was sup­port­ive and car­ing, and helped me real­ize that hid­ing who I am to please oth­ers is no way to live life.

Sad­ly, not all LGBTQ+ youth have a hap­py end­ing to their sto­ry.

Should I Skip College or Pay For It Alone?

For many, com­ing out can tear apart fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships and even take away their finan­cial secu­ri­ty.

The fear of being kicked out of their home and los­ing the love and sup­port of their fam­i­ly can often turn into a trag­ic real­i­ty. Accord­ing to a study by the Williams Insti­tute at the UCLA School of Law, LGBTQ+ teens make up 20–40% of the home­less youth in Cal­i­for­nia, despite rep­re­sent­ing only 7–10% of the over­all state’s youth pop­u­la­tion.

For many LGBTQ+ teenagers, it’s a daunt­ing choice between hid­ing their authen­tic selves or fund­ing their future by them­selves. Accord­ing to the Human Rights Cam­paign, near­ly 20% of LGBTQ+ youth report stay­ing in the clos­et until they are finan­cial­ly secure.

Look­ing back, my dream of a col­lege edu­ca­tion was made pos­si­ble because of the love and finan­cial sup­port of my fam­i­ly.

With the aver­age cost of a four-year col­lege degree now soar­ing above $108,000, stu­dents need finan­cial sup­port to afford their high­er edu­ca­tion.

While most stu­dents receive some form of fam­i­ly sup­port (74% accord­ing to Sal­lie Mae’s 2024 report), LGBTQ+ youth typ­i­cal­ly get sig­nif­i­cant­ly less:

• The per­cent­age of gay, les­bian, and bisex­u­al stu­dents who receive finan­cial sup­port from fam­i­ly is 12% less than their het­ero­sex­u­al peers.
• For trans­gen­der stu­dents, there is a 17% gap.

Many LGBTQ+ stu­dents who choose to fund their edu­ca­tion inde­pen­dent­ly turn to stu­dent loans. On aver­age, LGBTQ+ stu­dents bor­row $16,000 more than their straight peers.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, 60% say they lat­er regret that deci­sion as pay­ments become unaf­ford­able.

Can I Push Forward or Do I Give Up?

The road to col­lege is a major mile­stone in any student’s life, but for LGBTQ+ stu­dents it can pro­vide the life­line they need to keep going.

For me, col­lege was about fig­ur­ing out the per­son I want­ed to be.

It was about hav­ing a space to breathe again and men­tal­ly unpack how being clos­et­ed my entire life was neg­a­tive­ly impact­ing my men­tal health. It was about hav­ing the space to think, the space to learn, and the space to cre­ate my own future.

Like most mem­bers of the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty, I con­stant­ly hope that the next gen­er­a­tion behind me will have an eas­i­er path.

We know that with each gen­er­a­tion come new chal­lenges, but in our minds, things should be get­ting bet­ter. There should be less dis­crim­i­na­tion. There should be more accep­tance.

It sad­dens me to see today’s LGBTQ+ youth com­mu­ni­ty has high­er rates of anx­i­ety, depres­sion and sui­ci­dal thoughts than their peers:

• 41% of LGBTQ+ stu­dents have seri­ous­ly con­sid­ered sui­cide in the last year – more than dou­ble the rate of their peers (19%).
• The Trevor Project report­ed a 33% uptick in its requests for crit­i­cal life­line ser­vices, includ­ing sui­cide pre­ven­tion coun­sel­ing, in Jan­u­ary 2025.

How the National Rainbow College Fund Helps

Through my work at San Diego Foun­da­tion (SDF), I’ve met resilient LGBTQ+ youth across Cal­i­for­nia who are going through these chal­lenges.

Stu­dents like Bray­den, who dreams of becom­ing a child psy­chol­o­gist, stu­dents like Tyra, who wants to study busi­ness and one day lead a cor­po­ra­tion, and stu­dents like Elliott, who wants to pur­sue a pas­sion for envi­ron­men­tal pol­i­cy and make an impact on cli­mate change.

These amaz­ing LGBTQ+ teenagers need us now more than ever.

At SDF, we help all stu­dents build a foun­da­tion for their future and the future of our home. That’s why Edu­ca­tion is one of the key focus areas of our Fifty & For­ward 50th Anniver­sary Cam­paign, build­ing on the long suc­cess of our schol­ar­ship pro­grams.

One of our newest edu­ca­tion ini­tia­tives, the Nation­al Rain­bow Col­lege Fund (NRCF), is near and dear to my heart.

NRCF is the first pro­gram that offers schol­ar­ships to Cal­i­for­nia LGBTQ+ stu­dents – whether they are pub­licly out or not. We’re giv­ing LGBTQ+ youth the oppor­tu­ni­ty to fig­ure out who they are, what their future holds, and how they can live their lives to the fullest while still being true to who they are.

Togeth­er, we can help pro­vide LGBTQ+ stu­dents, regard­less of their sit­u­a­tion, the sup­port they need to pur­sue high­er edu­ca­tion with­out fear, shame, or finan­cial bar­ri­ers.

Will you stand with NRCF and advo­cate for bet­ter access to schol­ar­ships and help LGBTQ+ stu­dents achieve their dreams?

Your voice makes a dif­fer­ence.