Students who are single mothers struggle more than students without children to complete college. It’s not because they lack motivation or academic potential, it’s because our higher education system wasn’t built for student parents. Although single mother students get better grades than their non-parenting peers, they face significant demands on their time and finances that make college completion less of a defined finish line and more of a moving target.
As women who have each raised and are still raising young children while completing our degrees, we understand these realities firsthand. Our experience is representative of the nearly 4 million students — nearly a quarter of college undergraduates — who are raising dependent children. More than half (53%) of student parents have children under age 6. Yet student parents — particularly an estimated 1.7 million single mothers — are hiding in plain sight because state and federal policies and the student experience are based on outdated stereotypes of college students and the nature of work, family and education.
Fewer on-campus centers
Improving the success rates of single mothers in higher education requires resources and services that support them as they balance school, parenting and multiple other complex demands. They’re a worthwhile investment: A single mother with an associate degree earns roughly $256,000 more over her lifetime than if she had only a high school diploma. By making on-campus childcare centers available and accessible, federal and state policymakers can transform the academic and economic trajectories for single mother students and their children.
Despite the need, institutions are closing on-campus childcare centers. From 2004 to 2019, the share of public colleges and universities offering childcare services shrank from 59% to 45% — and at an even higher rate on community colleges, which enroll the largest share of student parents. Many single mothers, 88% of whom have incomes at or below the poverty line, rely on public benefits such as childcare vouchers that most childcare centers don’t accept.
Even if a college does operate an on-campus childcare center, it might not be an option for single mother students because of transportation, accessibility and affordability.
Though students with young children are likely eligible for the federally funded Head Start programs, it’s difficult to find this valuable preschool resource on or near a college campus. Fewer than 100 of the nation’s 3,700 community and technical college campuses have on-site Head Start providers.
But the landscape for on-campus childcare is changing. The new Kids on Campus partnership between the Association of Community College Trustees and the National Head Start Association, bolstered by new avenues of funding support, will bring more Head Start childcare centers onto community college campuses over the next five years.
Personal experiences
Our lived experiences as single mother students reflect what the data show us: Had it not been for the on-campus childcare at the community colleges we attended, it’s unlikely that either of us would have enrolled, much less persisted and stayed on track to graduate. There’s no doubt that high-quality on-campus childcare was crucial to our academic success.
It’s true elsewhere. New York’s Monroe Community College found that student parents with children under age 6 who used the on-campus childcare center were 18% more likely to return to school and three times more likely to graduate than student parents who didn’t use the center. For every dollar the federal government spends on childcare for single mother students, it would see a projected return on investment of 430% through reduced public assistance and increased tax contributions.
Single Moms Success, funded by ECMC Foundation and launched by national nonprofit Education Design Lab, is building inclusive communities and providing personalized learning and career and holistic support at four community colleges. This pilot program is seeing promising early results from its efforts to dramatically improve completion rates for single mother students.
Raising awareness
Institutions can better support student parents if they know who they are. Currently, there’s no federal requirement for colleges to collect data on parenting status. Designating this population as an equity group would drive robust data collection. Six states — California, Illinois, Michigan, Oregon, Texas and most recently Minnesota — have now passed legislation requiring their state colleges to collect data on parenting status. This information will help institutions prioritize policies and programming — such as providing access to affordable childcare, offering priority registration and hiring parent liaison staff positions — that can bolster the success of student parents.
Higher education funders and advocates now see student parents as a population worthy of investment. In Texas, the Trellis Foundation, which focuses on improving postsecondary attainment for low-income students and students of color, has invested in a Kids on Campus project to support student parents. Minnesota lawmakers recently allocated funds to the state’s public colleges and universities to participate in Kids on Campus. We hope to see additional philanthropic investments and legislation for student parents.
Changing the odds for student parents like us requires reframing the conversation. A new documentary film series called “Raising Up,” created by award-winning filmmakers Jaye and Adam Fenderson, aims to do just that. Their film delves into the key issues many student parents and single mother students face on their path to a credential — including childcare, affordable housing and access to mental health care.
The two of us know well that a college degree is a critical pathway to social and economic mobility. Policymakers can and should prioritize single mother students as a key constituency that can help communities thrive for generations to come.
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Amber Angel is a program officer and leader of the Single Mother Student Success Initiative at ECMC Foundation.
Shayna Zunk is a student at Monroe County Community College in Michigan.