New Suffolk attorney and New York Times best-selling author Regina Calcaterra didn’t listen when she was told to get a job after high school instead of pursuing a college degree.
It wasn’t feasible, her foster care counselor explained, because she simply didn’t have the social and economic means to obtain a higher education. A couple of Ms. Calcaterra’s teachers at Centereach High School countered that argument, telling her it was possible for her to join the 2 percent of foster care children who graduate from college.Defying the odds, a middle child of five siblings who grew up on Long Island streets before landing in foster care, Ms. Calcaterra graduated from SUNY/New Paltz in 1988 with a degree in political science.