Expanding Pathways for Student Parents: A Policy Agenda to Meet the Needs of Student Parents
August 26, 2021
by California Competes
Topics: Data Systems, Degree Attainment, Adults, Student Parents
California parents have faced numerous challenges this year from health fears caused by the pandemic, uncertain employment, abrupt closures of daycare and aftercare facilities and programs, and the challenges of helping their children with remote learning. Parents who are also students themselves have faced even more obstacles as they balance the competing demands of parenting, working, and attending school. While the pandemic exacerbated these struggles, they are not new. Historically, parenting students have faced additional barriers to higher education entry and success including economic insecurity, caregiving demands, scheduling classes around their parenting responsibilities, and meeting the basic needs of their families.
California Competes is launching a new policy agenda aimed at expanding the pathways to higher education for student parents and improving their success once enrolled. The policy agenda highlights how the economic challenges faced by student parents and the competing demands on their time often serve as roadblocks to college completion. The agenda homes in on the key strategies that institutions and state policymakers must take to prioritize and address the needs of student parents. These strategies are:
- addressing higher education and childcare costs,
- making institutions more parent-friendly, and
- understanding the needs of student parents by collecting and sharing more data on these students.
This blog series expands on the policy agenda, digging into why it is important to address the needs of student parents and providing details on specific strategies that can be taken by institutions and the state to support these students. The second post in the series examines barriers parenting students face, how increasing educational attainment can be beneficial for these students and for the state, and what is known and not known about the current participation of parents in higher education in California. The third post details actions that can be taken by institutions in each public higher education segment to meet student parents’ needs. The fourth post summarizes strategies state and federal policy leaders can take to help student parents.
Read the Other Posts in the Series
The Landscape of Parenting Students: An Incomplete Picture of the Challenges Student Parents Face to Educational Success
California Competes |
August 26, 2021
This second blog post examines the current landscape of student parents in higher education, the role student parents can play in increasing educational attainment in the state, and the barriers they face to success. This post also highlights current data collection on parenting students and how enhanced data collection could help us better understand the needs of parenting students.
Institutional Changes to Ease the Path for Student Parents
California Competes |
August 26, 2021
The prior blog posts in this series outlined how student parents face barriers to entry and success in higher education and how inadequate data collection creates challenges in understanding their needs. This post examines institutional practices that can create a more student-parent friendly environment.
State and Federal Strategies to Improve Higher Educational Attainment of Student Parents
California Competes |
August 26, 2021
This last blog post in the series looks at actions state and federal policy makers can take to foster the inclusion and success of student parents. Holistically supporting parents as they complete their education will lead to better personal outcomes for students and their families and bolster the state’s economy by increasing the education level of the workforce.
