How Many College Students are Parents in Your State?

Last June, bipartisan lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives reintroduced the Understanding Student Parent Outcomes Act, which would require colleges across the country to collect data on students’ parental status. The goal of the bill is to equip institutional, state, and federal policymakers with better information on where parenting students are enrolled and what they need to stay on the path to graduation.

This kind of actionable, student-level data on student parents currently doesn't exist. While national surveys can estimate how many students are also parents, these data are an approximation and come with limited scope and inconsistent definitions. For example, the American Community Survey (ACS) offers insight on parents in degree programs, but doesn’t collect information on those enrolled in certificate or noncredit programs. While the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS) establishes parenthood by whether a child receives more than half their financial support from a student, the ACS establishes this by whether a child lives in the student’s household.

These data sources don’t tell us where student parents are enrolled and how their experiences and outcomes vary across campuses and states. Without more precise data and consistent definitions, it is difficult for institutional, state, and federal policymakers to craft policies that reflect the realities of student parents.

State policymakers don’t have to wait for the Understanding Student Parent Outcomes Act to move in Congress; they can take commonsense action to pass state laws requiring data collection on student parents. By gathering data on student parents now, states can better understand their needs and take steps to build family-friendly higher education systems.

Some states are leading the way to gather data to inform decision-making to address the needs of student parents. Illinois, Minnesota, Oregon, Texas, and California have all passed laws requiring colleges to collect data on student parents. Maryland, Virginia, and Washington are currently considering similar legislation.

Even without comprehensive state or institution level data, one thing is clear from the limited data we do have: student parents are a significant presence on campuses, making up about one in five undergraduates and one in four graduate students nationally. Figure 1 shows a conservative estimate of how many live in each state, underscoring the scale of this population and why state lawmakers and higher education leaders could benefit from more information to better support them.

These data are an estimate of student parents in undergraduate and graduate degree programs with children under 18 in their household.* Many parents are also enrolled in certificate programs, which this estimate does not include (but state lawmakers could require in data collection legislation). Across the country, an estimated 35.5 percent of those enrolled in undergraduate certificate programs, or about 420,000 students, have dependent children.**

While the table above gives an estimate of the size of the degree-seeking student parent population in a given state, it doesn’t tell us how many are at each college or university, what academic programs they are in, how many graduate, or how many stop out of school because they’re unable to secure essential needs like child care. That’s where collecting more granular data comes in–with thoughtful data collection, states can better identify trends and how to respond to them, ultimately to support degree completion efforts and workforce needs.

While some largely populated states like Texas, Florida, and California are home to hundreds of thousands of student parents, states with smaller estimated student parent populations should take note, too. Less populous states, as one might expect, are home to fewer student parents, but those states may really need their student parents to complete their credential to strengthen economies, support local workforce needs, and promote economic security for families.

States stand to gain economically by improving student parents’ college completion rates

Tax revenue is higher from those with college degrees and spending on public benefits tends to be less. When states don’t know where student parents are enrolled or what their outcomes are, they miss an opportunity not only to improve economic outcomes for student parents and their families, but also to improve their own states’ financial standing.

A 2019 Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) study estimated the benefits of degree completion for single mothers in each state and nationally. They found on average that single mothers with an associate degree pay over $70,000 more in taxes throughout their lifetime than they would with a high school diploma, while saving more than $25,000 in public benefit costs. A single mother with a bachelor’s degree could contribute $220,000 more in taxes over a lifetime and save an estimated $40,000 in public benefit spending.

College graduates also have lower unemployment rates than those without a college degree.

College-educated workers are critical to meeting workforce needs, and student parents can fill those roles

When parents aren’t supported on the path to completing their postsecondary credentials, states risk an underprepared workforce that can’t meet its needs.

An estimated 72 percent of jobs will require some postsecondary education by 2031; today about 55 percent of U.S. adults hold a postsecondary credential. As we approach the demographic cliff (a declining number of high school graduates in most states across the U.S.), states need to consider how they’ll prepare a strong workforce for occupations that require college education while in many cases producing fewer high school graduates.

That means student parents, who are often adult learners not enrolling right out of high school, could play a key role in state strategies for postsecondary attainment and workforce development. Consider as one example projected workforce shortages in health care occupations. Undergraduate student parents are overrepresented in health care fields, with 33 percent enrolled in a health care related academic program, compared to just 15 percent of nonparenting students. When colleges and states don’t collect information on parental status, they lose an opportunity to smooth over barriers they face in their education to keep them enrolled and ultimately prepared to work in healthcare occupations.

It’s likely not academics that keep parenting students from completing their education programs. While they have similar GPAs to nonparenting students, they’re much less likely to graduate. Just 17 percent of parenting students graduate in six years compared to 50 percent of their peers. This makes it even more critical to understand, through data, exactly where student parents are facing roadblocks.

Parents in college need solutions to help them stay in school while caring for their families. By collecting data on this population, states and colleges can begin to meaningfully understand and address the obstacles in the way of student parent retention and graduation. Ultimately, counting and serving student parents can benefit states through economic gains and a well-prepared workforce.

To learn more, state policymakers can check out resources like Urban Institute’s Data-to-Action Campaign for Parenting Students to explore lessons learned from colleges that have implemented data collection on student parents.

*2023 American Community Survey (ACS) estimates, rounded to the nearest hundred. The ACS questionnaire establishes parenthood by determining whether a parent and child live in the same household, so it undercounts student parents who care for children who do not reside with them. The questionnaire asks about coursework that leads to a degree (emphasis added), therefore does not include those enrolled in certificate programs or taking classes but not working towards a degree. Because it asks about enrollment in the past 3 months, it undercounts parents who take classes only in some semesters (e.g., a parent completing the survey in May who only took classes in the prior summer and/or fall would check “no” to the question about having attended college in the past 3 months, even if they planned to take more classes to work toward their degree soon).

Student parent status can be defined and measured differently via different survey instruments, so using other survey data (for example, the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study) can yield different estimates of student parents.

**Author’s analysis of National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, Undergraduate, 2019-20. Variables: Undergraduate degree program, Has dependent children

***Acknowledgement: Thank you to David Radwin and AJ Johnson from California Competes for their review of this piece, and to The California Alliance for Student Parent Success for its California Student Parents Almanac. The almanac includes easy-to-replicate data links, making it possible to reproduce the report or specific charts for any other state.