Institute for Women’s Policy Research Student Parent Success Initiative Spring 2021 Newsletter

IWPR NEWS AND PUBLICATIONS

Welcome to Felicity Hector-Bruder, SPSI Summer Intern. A rising senior studying Data Science for Political Science with a focus on Public Policy, Felicity is passionate about exploring new ways to serve student parents' unique needs. She is excited to leverage her prior experience at Generation Hope and join the team for the summer!

Breaking Barriers, Increasing Visibility for Students with Children

This guest blog post is authored by Ashlee Hernandez, is a 2021 alumni of Cal Poly’s Higher Education Counseling and Student Affairs graduate program. During her time with California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, Ashlee worked to build a robust and active Student with Dependents program, led a comprehensive institutional needs-assessment on behalf of pregnant and parenting students, and secured institutional and state grant funding for their basic needs. | June 2021

Read Post

IWPR is excited to share Head Start-College Partnership to Promote Student Parent Family Success: A Roadmap to Guide Collaboration. This resource is designed to help college and university staff, administrators, and campus child care directors evaluate the needs of their parenting student body and assess whether a collaboration with Head Start is right for their institutions. The “Roadmap” is based on IWPR’s 2019 study that explored partnerships between Head Start programs and higher education institutions. | June 2021

Read Post

The Student Equity Imperative: Guidance for the Biden Administration provides recommendations for policy reform that prioritizes student parents and their families’ wellbeing and contributes to the development of sustainable and equitable pathways to educational attainment. IWPR’s recommendations span four areas: (1) Supporting student parents’ college access and success; (2) Building affordable pathways to college for student parents; (3) Expanding caregiving support and child care access for student parents; and (4) Increasing basic needs security for student parent families. | April 2021

Read Post

Child Care Access for Student Parents in Oregon: Challenges and Opportunities for Improving Educational and Economic Success describes the landscape of child care for college students with children in Oregon and addresses the challenges and opportunities for improving their child care access. It draws on a review of the literature, expert interviews, national and state data analysis, and a survey of campus child care directors. It also provides recommendations for how Oregon can promote student parents’ postsecondary success through improved access to quality, affordable care. | April 2021

Read Post

Busy with Purpose: Lessons for Education and Policy Leaders from Returning Student Parents shares insight into student parents’ college experiences, including the choice to leave school before graduating and to later reengage to continue their college journeys. It also provides student parent-driven recommendations for education and policy leaders for building a higher education system that embraces and supports students with children. | March 2021

Read Post



OTHER STUDENT PARENT RESEARCH & RESOURCES

New Book: Pregnant Girl: A Story of Teen Motherhood, College, and Creating a Better Future for Young Families by Nicole Lynn Lewis (Beacon Press) is part memoir and part urgent call to action. Lewis, the Founder & CEO of Generation Hope, explores how we can better support parenting students and young families so they can thrive, and she reflects on her experiences as a Black mother and college student fighting for opportunities for herself and her daughter.

The US Department of Education COVID-19 Handbook: Strategies for Safe Operation and Addressing the Impact of COVID-19 on Higher Education Students, Faculty, and Staff

This COVID-19 handbook provides guidance to higher education institutions on how to safely operate and address the impact of COVID-19. This includes a dedicated section on student caregivers and recommendations for how schools can better support this population (see page 38). | June 2021



New Student Parent Podcast "1 in 5"

Ascend at the Aspen Institute has released a new podcast sharing in-depth conversations with student parents, Ascend Postsecondary Success for Parents Parent Advisors, Ascend National Network Partners, and advocates from education, philanthropy, non-profit, and research fields. You can listen to all 15 episodes here and access more Parent Voice materials here.



Improving Mental Health of Student Parents: A Framework For Higher Education

Ascend at the Aspen Institute and the JED Foundation released a framework and recommendations for administrators, faculty, and staff at institutions of higher learning to better serve the mental health needs of student parents. The report found that more than 43% of student parents experience extreme stress that affects their mental health and educational success, and 38% saying they considered dropping out in the last 30 days. | May 2021



Community College Women Succeed: Research Agenda

Achieving the Dream released a research agenda designed to better understand community college women and mothers and inform efforts to promote their success. The research agenda highlights areas of needed research, such as improved data collection and analysis on student parents’ demographic characteristics and educational outcomes and identifying recruitment practices and student success strategies that promote their college access and attainment. | May 2021



Obstacles to Opportunity: Increasing College Success by Understanding & Addressing Older Students’ Costs Beyond Tuition

This report by the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality describes the costs of attendance beyond tuition for older students between the ages of 25-45. The report shows that the real cost of college for older students is higher than commonly understood, especially for older students with dependents, whose costs are, on average, nearly $6,000 higher than for their counterparts without dependents. | April 2021



COVID-19 Has Disrupted College Plans for Students in Households with Children

This report from Child Trends looks at caregiving student enrollment during the pandemic using the Census PULSE data. This latest report using Census Pulse Survey data from August-December 2020 investigated how the pandemic influenced college plans, comparing student caregivers to non-caregiving peers. | April 2021



A Portrait of California Community College Students with Dependent Children

UC Davis researchers published two separate briefs which present enrollment trends for student parents across California and an examination of student parents’ experiences at one community college. | March 2021



FamilyU 2021

Generation Hope launched a new Technical Assistance program to help colleges and universities better serve the needs of student parents. FamilyU is a comprehensive, customized, evidence-based, two-year capacity-building experience designed to build and refine institutional competencies to improve student parent success.



POLICY UPDATES

The White House proposes funding increase for CCAMPIS

The Biden-Harris Administration’s Fiscal Year 2022 budget proposes increasing funding for the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program to $138 million, more than 2.5x its current funding. CCAMPIS is designed to bolster the participation of low-income parents in college through the provision of subsidized campus child care services. While not an official increase in funding, the proposal demonstrates enhanced attention to the importance of affordable child care for student parent success. See Dept. of Edu. budget here (page 348; PDF page 14).


SB564: Relating to student demographic data at post-secondary institutions of education

With the leadership of Michaela Martin, a student parent advocate and Ascend Parent Advisor, and other advocates, Oregon passed a bill that will require all public colleges and universities to collect data on student parents by allowing each student to identify whether they are a parent or person acting as parent or legal guardian.


SB5237: Fair Start for Kids Act

Washington State passed a bill that, among other changes for early childhood education access and quality, removes the 20-hour work requirement for full-time student parents enrolled in a community or technical college and allows parents pursuing an associate degree, vocational certificate, or registered apprenticeship to be eligible to receive assistance. This bill was passed, in part, with advocacy from the Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP.


HB2878: The Student Parent Data Collection Act

In Illinois, with advocacy from Young Invincibles and Women Employed, the state legislature passed a bill that requires all public colleges and universities to determine the parental status of its students and collect specified information about the student if the student indicates that the student is a parent. It will also require institutions that operate, or are affiliated with, child care centers to collect information on the number of children served.


HB3462: Relating to the designation of liaison officers to assist certain students at public institutions of higher education who are parents

With advocacy from Young Invincibles, the Texas State House passed a bill that has colleges designate an on-campus student parent liaison to connect students with support services. The bill would also allow for data collection on student parents. The bill was referred to the Senate Higher Education Committee as the Texas legislative session ended.


Resolution #21-04

California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly)’s student government passed a resolution calling for the University to support students with dependents through formalized data collection, an initiative that was 100% student parent led.





EVENTS, FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES, & OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS



Education Support Awards

Applications are now available for the 2021-22 Education Support Awards from the Patsy Takemoto Mink Education Foundation. The Foundation will select five low-income mothers who are pursuing postsecondary education for awards of up to $5,000 each. The deadline for applications is August 1, 2021. For more information, visit their website.


Make College Affordable for Students Who Are Parents: Survey for Student Parents

Ed Trust, in partnership with Generation Hope, is writing a report the true cost of college for student parents. If you are a student parent, consider taking their survey to inform the report.


Ruth Matthews Bourger Women with Children Program Seeking Applications

The Ruth Matthews Bourger Women with Children Program (WWC) is now seeking applications for the 2021-2022 school year. Based at Misericordia University, the two-gen single mother support program is expanding to serve 20 families. Housing is free for families for up to four years and they receive a host of services to support single mothers and family success. For more information, please visit their website.





STUDENT PARENTS IN THE NEWS



Student Parents and COVID-19

Beneath the surface, a crisis for working women and mothers in college | The Hill | May 17, 2021
Colleges Must Support Student Parents Even After COVID | Ms. Magazine | May 7, 2021
Opinion: The pandemic has devastated entire families. Two-generation approaches can uplift them | The Hechinger Report | April 20, 2021
Not Child’s Play: Student Parents on the Demands of the Pandemic |The Chicago Maroon | April 3, 2021

Supporting Student Parent Success

Opinion: UGA student-parents: Support us, don’t shame us | The Red & Black | June 11, 2021
College Promise, ETS Create Models for Targeted Student Support | Diverse Issues in Higher Education | June 9, 2021
Oregon is Finally Counting Student Parents. Other States Should Follow |Diverse Issues In Higher Education | June 7, 2021
The Lessons Teen Moms Can Teach Colleges | Ed Surge Podcast | June 1, 2021
How Colleges Tell Student-Parents They Don’t Belong | The Atlantic | May 26, 2020
COLUMN: The Biden presidency could finally mean more help for student parents | The Hechinger Report | May 18, 2021
The Silent Population: Student Parents Face Barriers To Academic Success | Illinois Newsroom |May 13, 2021
Former 'Pregnant Girl' Builds Support to Help Other Teen Moms | NPR | May 3, 2021
Tiny homes offer big advantage to Jackson College students with families | M Live | April 22, 2021
Colorado Needs More Skilled Workers But The State Provides Little Help To Adults Seeking A Degree| CPR News | March 20, 2021
Lindenwood selected as pilot campus for social services | Linden Link | March 8, 2021
Why I must earn a college degree as a parent of a young child | Ed Source | March 5, 2021
More housing for our students, child-care for employees | UC Santa Cruz | March 5, 2021|
13 facts about the plight of college students with kids | University Business | January 12, 2021

Expansion of Child Care Access for Student Parents

Invest in solving Central Oregon's child care crisis | The Bulletin | May 30, 2021
New summer childcare session lets Sinclair students ‘persist and graduate’ | Dayton Daily News | May 15, 2021
SLCC offering affordable on campus childcare | Fox 13 Salt Lake City | May 14, 2021
$1.5 million grant supports child care services for Fresno State student-parents |ABC 30 | April 22, 2021



About the Student Parent Success initiative

The Student Parent Success Initiative (SPSI), a project of the Institute for Women's Policy Research, conducts research and analysis to improve supports and services for student parents and promote their success in postsecondary education. SPSI serves to initiate new research, raise awareness on the need for student parent supports, and foster communication and collaboration among advocates, policymakers, educators, and practitioners. Contact us at [email protected].

OUR MISSION | A just future begins with bold ideas

We win economic equity for all women and eliminate barriers to their full participation in society. As a leading national think tank, we build evidence to shape policies that grow women’s power and influence, close inequality gaps, and improve the economic well-being of families.

Institute for Women's Policy Research

1200 18th Street NW, Suite 301

Washington DC, 20036

Donate
Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

This message was sent to [email protected] from [email protected]

Institute for Women's Policy Research
1200 18th Street NW, Suite 301
Washington, DC 20036
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

iContact - Try it for FREE: [link removed]