To Support Student Parents, Colleges Need to Know Who They Are

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 sources of data on college students with children.

Here is what we know about student parents enrolled in community colleges based on the most recent survey (2020): they have on average two children (their youngest is approximately seven years old), just over half are unmarried, and over half are people of color. We also know that these parents spend approximately $550 a month on child care (if they pay for childcare, which only about half do), about half of them attend institutions that offer on-campus child care, and approximately a third reported difficulty finding safe and stable child care during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But we do not know much more than this. The NPSAS data leave large gaps in our knowledge of community college students who are parents, from how they are financing both education and child care to how their parenting duties interact with their educational responsibilities. And other data sources fail to fill these gaps. National datasets like the Current Population Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau or the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study from the National Center for Education Statistics only scratch the surface on who student parents are and what their experience in higher education is like. Plus, these national data are generally collected too infrequently (every four years, in the case of NPSAS) to provide timely, actionable information on trends.

Understanding student parents—their demographics as well as their needs and outcomes-–is a prerequisite for schools to design services and supports that can foster parents’ success, and promote equitable outcomes across all students. Perhaps the biggest shortcoming of the national surveys is that they cannot help individual institutions identify and support their student parents. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) does collect information on whether a student has dependents, but since not all students fill out the FAFSA, schools relying on these data receive an incomplete picture. Thus, to provide comprehensive supports, schools need to fill in the gaps themselves. But most schools are still not collecting data on their student parents. A few states have passed bills requiring institutions of higher education to collect and track data on students’ parenting status, including Oregon, Illinois, and California, but there is clearly much more to be done.

There are a few institutions and school systems that are leading the way on addressing this lack of data. One such case is Monroe Community College (MCC) in Rochester, NY. MCC collects data on the parenting status of students every semester via a survey that students are required to complete during course registration. By compiling and analyzing the data over time, MCC could see that parents of young children had higher persistence rates and on-time graduation rates if they used the child-care center on campus. MCC used this information in its successful application for the U.S. Department of Education’s Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) grant that provides funding for on-campus child care centers.

The Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG) takes another approach. TCSG relies on FAFSA data, but also includes a voluntary question about single-parent status on its entrance surveys to identify students with caregiving responsibilities who might not have filled out the FAFSA. This information not only allows the Georgia schools to track the outcomes of student parents as they do other student groups, but it also allows college staff to reach out and share information regarding relevant support services specific to student parents.

Some nonprofits have also developed tools and expertise to help schools and states pay more attention to the needs of their community college student parents. For example, the Urban Institute recently published a brief that includes sample questions that institutions can ask students. The brief is just one part of its larger Data-to-Action Campaign for Parenting Students, which provides technical assistance to schools, college systems, and local governments to identify and resolve shortcomings with their student-parent data collection. Other noteworthy examples of organizations providing assistance and research for colleges include the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Achieving the Dream, and the Education Design Lab.

Understanding the unique needs of such a sizable, yet often overlooked, population of the students in higher education is critical to improving educational outcomes and reducing equity gaps. This is why New America is joining the efforts to improve the collection and use of data on student parents at community colleges.

Next year, we will work with five community colleges with innovative child care models to improve their data collection on student parents, as part of establishing a more comprehensive view of their student parent population. As noted college-data coach and consultant Mary Ann DeMario said in a recent conversation with New America, “Once a college can identify its student parents, it makes those students more visible to the college community.” We are excited about joining the efforts to ensure these students feel supported and valued, and ultimately help them achieve their educational goals.