Amanda Abens took classes at Pima Community College (Arizona) as a 22-year-old single mother. It was a surprise for those in Abens’ life who didn’t expect her to return to higher education after dropping out of the University of Arizona two years before.
“People believed that college was not for me, but when I came to Pima, I saw people from all backgrounds,” says Abens, now assistant vice chancellor of workforce development and lifelong learning at the college. “I also had professors understanding of my situation, so I took my time, and felt I could be successful at this. Especially as a young parent, people don’t expect much out of you. But community college provides opportunities that just don’t exist in other places.”
This article comes from the current issue of Community College Journal, a bimonthly magazine from the American Association of Community Colleges.
Affordability and accessibility make two-year colleges an enticing option for a wide swath of learners; last fall, the sector enrolled 4.6 million students, representing 30% of all undergraduates in higher ed. More than one in five community college students in the U.S. have dependent children, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), one of the few data sources on college students with children.
Per the report, parenting students have two children on average, while just over half are unmarried. People of color comprise half of all parents, typically spending around $550 per month on childcare — a significant burden that many in this situation cannot afford.
Overall, the NPSAS data provides an incomplete picture of student-parents, from their money woes to the difficulties of managing parenting responsibilities alongside academic pursuits. Nor are these blanks filled by other national datasets such as the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey or the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study from the National Center for Education.
Data challenges
Ultimately, statistics alone don’t fully reveal the needs of student-parents, a challenge compounded by colleges’ difficulty in identifying this population in the first place, notes Abens.
Many postsecondary institutions, including community colleges, lack a standardized system for tracking information on the demographic. This could be due to limited data collection resources, prioritization of non-parenting students, or a population hesitant to identify as parents due to stigma or privacy concerns.
Although some colleges collect this information on application forms, it’s far from standard practice. Pima does not currently ask about parenting students, a practice that may change as the college re-evaluates its application process under the leadership of newly named chancellor, Jeffrey Nasse.
“Student-parents are the one piece of information that we don’t have good data on,” says Abens. “We don’t know about their outcomes, because right now, we’re looking at the overall population. So, there is that gap, and I hope with the new applications we may include parents.”
Part-time problems
Information gap aside, two-year colleges can infer that parent students are likely attending classes part-time. About 75% of Pima’s 30,000 students are balancing education and other commitments, with this group more likely to experience lower persistence, retention and graduation rates.
Extrapolating data on part-time learners should provide a window into the specific challenges of student-parents, Abens says.
“Looking at equity and our outcomes, part-time learners aren’t doing as well,” she says. “We should be understanding the patterns of parenting students, which would let us desegregate data just like we do for our veterans. We should be tracking this population as we’re implementing childcare resources or SNAP. It’s about knowing not just who we’re serving, but what their outcomes are and are those outcomes equitable.”
While Pima and other community colleges may lack precise data on student-parents, supportive services are empowering this group to continue their education. In 2021, Pima opened the Desert Vista Early Learning Center, an on-campus pre-school operating in collaboration with local partners including United Way. A federal Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) grant subsidizes childcare costs for eligible student-parents, whether at Desert Vista or other participating licensed providers.
A different approach
Parents also are folded into Pima’s definition of “New Majority Learners,” a reimagining of nontraditional students that further encompasses people of color, low-income students and enrollees who speak English as a second language.
“We didn’t like that ‘other’ label,” says Abens. “These are folks who are parenting, disabled or working multiple jobs. This is a new model that helps us take an honest inventory (of student challenges).”
For these students, Pima offers the types of hybrid learning offerings that became common during Covid. Parenting students also benefit from a micro-pathway model offering stackable credentials, resulting in jobs at or above the local median wage as well as a pathway to an associate’s degree.
“These are open-access programs fully stackable for higher-level degrees and certifications,” Abens says. “We use Marketable Skills Achievement programming like Texas, where students are fully transcripted and have access to all of our resources.”
