Project Overview

In 2023, New America launched the Child Care for Student Parents at Community Colleges Project to research child care access for students with children. Issues such as high child care costs, limited supply, and inconsistent quality affect most parents in the United States, including parenting students. About 22 percent of students in college are parents, and most of them attend community colleges.¹ Through interviews with parenting students at community colleges, we confirmed that access to affordable, convenient, and high-quality child care could make their academic careers more manageable and fulfilling.

We engaged with community college leadership, staff, and current students to explore the most effective ways to support parenting students in accessing child care. As part of this effort, we issued a request for proposals inviting public community colleges to join one of two cohorts.

Cohort 1: Child Care for Student Parents at Community Colleges

New America selected five community colleges to join the Child Care for Student Parents at Community Colleges cohort. We conducted site visits to gain a deeper understanding of their approaches to funding, data collection, policies, and the logistics of providing child care for parenting students. We selected five colleges:

1. Forsyth Technical Community College (North Carolina)
2. Linn-Benton Community College (Oregon)
3. Madison Area Technical College (Wisconsin)
4. Mott Community College (Michigan)
5. Quinsigamond Community College (Massachusetts)

Each college we visited offered at least one child care service:

• On-campus child care center operated by the college
• Partnership or contract with community child care providers
• Partnership with Head Start
• Drop-in child care services
• Child care resources and referral offices
• Scholarships, grants, or vouchers to subsidize child care costs

Each participating college received a one-time $30,000 grant from New America to support initiatives to improve data collection on parenting students and expand access to child care. Colleges collaborated closely with New America to advance research and practice supporting parenting students. As part of their participation in the project, the colleges developed plans to enhance data infrastructure for identifying parenting students. While participating in this project, they planned to implement at least one practice or policy change to address their child care needs better.

Cohort 2: Community of Research and Practice on Barriers to Supporting Student Parents

New America invited community colleges interested in expanding and strengthening their support for parenting students, specifically in child care, to join the Community of Research and Practice on Barriers to Supporting Student Parents cohort. We selected five colleges to participate, each receiving a one-time, flexible $5,000 grant from New America.

We conducted virtual interviews with key stakeholders at each institution to better understand the barriers and challenges limiting support for parenting students and ways to improve these services. We selected five colleges:

1. Glen Oaks Community College (Michigan)
2. Harry S Truman College (Illinois)
3. McLennan Community College (Texas)
4. Montgomery College (Maryland)
5. Savannah Technical College (Georgia)

Members of this cohort represented community colleges at three different stages of developing child care-related support:

• Colleges that did not currently offer child care support services but were considering introducing at least one service
• Colleges that had previously offered child care-related support but had scaled back or discontinued these services
• Colleges that had plans to implement child care support services but had yet to implement these services