Breaking Barriers, Increasing Visibility for Students with Children
This guest blog post is authored by Ashlee Hernandez, a [...]
This guest blog post is authored by Ashlee Hernandez, a [...]
Collaboration between colleges and Head Start programs holds promise for promoting the educational and economic well-being of college students with young children. Roughly one million undergraduate student parents with children under age six are income-eligible for Head Start, and their ability to complete their educational programs is linked to their access to affordable sources of early care and learning for their children. [...]
As the Biden-Harris administration seeks to hasten the country’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, reforming the U.S. higher education system to ensure equitable access and attainment for all adults is more important than ever. The pandemic has disproportionately increased the caregiving, financial, and emotional burdens on student parents and their families—most of whom are mothers, students of color, adult and working learners, students with low incomes, and first-generation students [...]
Access to affordable, safe, and reliable child care is essential to the ability of college students with children to pursue higher education. In Oregon, systemic challenges within the state’s child care and early learning system can make it difficult for student parents to find and pay for the care they need. This report describes findings from a study conducted by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research to describe the landscape of child care..
Postsecondary attainment is widely recognized as key to accessing living-wage careers—in addition to fulfilling workforce demands and elevating the United States’ standing on the world stage. While much of the work to increase attainment rates has recognized the role of reengaging adults who have some college credit, but no degree or certificate, less attention has been paid to the salience of parenthood in adults’ postsecondary experiences.
Community college students’ lives outside of the classroom—including their sexual and reproductive health— can directly impact their ability to succeed in school, yet most community colleges do not provide sexual and reproductive health services (Bernstein and Reichlin Cruse 2020). Growing efforts to implement holistic approaches to student success also often ignore the role that sexual and reproductive health outcomes can play students’ academic careers.
Data on students’ parent status would help campuses, higher education systems, and policymakers assess needs, target supports and services, understand student outcomes, and measure what works to promote student parent enrollment, persistence, and completion.
Collaboration between colleges and Head Start programs holds promise for promoting the educational and economic well-being of college students with young children.
Nearly four million U.S. undergraduate college students are parents or guardians of children under the age of 18. These student parents, who already faced immense financial, child care, food, and housing insecurity before the COVID-19 pandemic, are now dealing with multiple new barriers, including school closures, lay-offs, and child care disruptions, among other challenges.
DOWNLOAD REPORT About this Report Promoting family economic [...]