For student parents, the biggest hurdles for a college education are total costs and finding child care.
College students who are parents understand better than most how critical education is to their family’s economic future. They are working diligently to secure a better life for themselves through postsecondary education. Student parents are juggling work, the costs of tuition, books, childcare, and frequently finding the annual cost of pursuing a college degree is out of their reach.
“There is no state in which a parent can work ten hours per week at minimum wage and afford both tuition and child care at a public college or university.” This is the initial key finding in a new report in an ongoing series on educational equity from The Education Trust.
Other key findings from the report include:
- Many states that look affordable based on their reported net price actually have a wide affordability gap for student parents when factoring in the cost of child care.
- The out-of-pocket costs of attending a public college is two to five times higher for student parents than for their other low-income peers without children.
- A student parent would need to work 52 hours per week, on average, to cover child care and tuition costs at a four-year public college/university.
- Net price alone is not a good indicator of affordability for student parents because child care access and costs vary widely. The student’s state minimum wage is also part of this calculation.
The student parent affordability gap
The report notes that student parents pay an average of $7,592 per child more than their peers without children with higher food prices, medical expenses, housing, and child care after subtracting any grants or scholarships. Two-thirds of student parents (68%) live near the poverty line. The vast majority of student parents are single mothers and access to affordable child care is critical to them completing a degree while on-campus child care options are decreasing.
No matter the type of child care (commercial daycare, off/on campus center, or home-based), few low income-students can afford child care on their own without subsidies. Grants and subsides fall short in helping student parents remain in school. The research for this report concentrated on the increased burden child care places on students—keeping many of them from accomplishing their academic goals and earning a degree or certification.
“The bottom line is that many student parents from low-income backgrounds still must come up with thousands of dollars, and in some cases, tens of thousands of dollars—after grants, scholarships, and earnings from working ten hours per week to cover the full cost of attending a public college in nearly every state. We call this the student parent affordability gap,” according to the report.
Making it easier for these students to succeedThe report calls out campus leaders and federal and state policy makers to do more to support student parents, who are “disproportionately single, students of color, and from low-income backgrounds.”
Financial hurdles are the biggest obstacle to earning a degree. According to the Department of Education (2021), college costs have risen by 28% at public institutions and 19% at private institutions since 2008. This makes postsecondary education less accessible for many student parents.
Federal recommendations include:
- Double the Pell Grant to make college more affordable for student parents.
- Raise the federal minimum hourly wage to $20.
- Increase funding for the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) to $500 million.
- Support students by increasing funding for Early Childhood Education (ECE).
- Restore and make permanent the monthly child tax credit.
State recommendations include:
- Invest in high quality campus-based child care programs and professional development for all early learning professionals in teaching roles, including paraprofessionals.
- Prioritize the creation and expansion of more child care options including center-based programs, family child care providers, Head Start and public schools.
To help ease the burden for student parents, higher education institutions need to provide priority enrollment for student parents and ensure that campus-based programs offer full-day accommodations that align with course schedules and are open year-round. Institutions can also help student parents access federal and state child care subsidies.
Finding ways to ease the financial burden of postsecondary education for student parents will result in more of these students reaching their learning and economic goals and increasing their ability to support their families and contribute to society.