This paper examines the post-secondary pathways of thirteen young people who were put under foster care services in Que-bec and who benefited from a philanthropic project designed to support their academic pathways and their transition to adult life. By highlighting identity tensions, this paper aims to understand how these young people experienced their integration into the post-secondary environment, while dealing with an injunction to adulthood. The analysis of individual interviews highlights three tensions at the heart of their identity construction as post-secondary students with a foster care background: a first tension between desired social ascension and assigned stigma, a second tension between the desire to be autonomous and dependency on the philanthropic program, and a third tension between perceived academic potential and experienced pressure.