A common equity blind spot: what higher ed leaders need to know about serving student-parents

And how can we help students access that knowledge?

Nicole: Self-advocacy is something we work to cultivate in our students at Generation Hope, particularly our first-gen students. This might look like telling a professor, “I am a mother, or I am a father, and there is a chance that my child might be sick this semester. What kind of communication would you like in those events to make sure that my grades don’t suffer?” At the same time, institutions must equip themselves to answer that question and create safe spaces for these conversations. Many student-parents aren’t comfortable disclosing their parenting status because of negative reactions and consequences.

The other part of the equation is access to resources. Students should be able to make their own decisions regarding their education, but they need help to be readily available. Colleges can ensure student-parents have access to emergency funding, food and housing resources, and a clear sense of the financial aid they can use as parenting students, including funding for childcare.

RESOURCE: ADDRESSING FOOD AND HOUSING INSECURITY ON CAMPUS

Nicole: In a survey of our scholars, we found that even when institutions have supportive policies around student-parents, frontline faculty and staff don’t consistently implement them. We need to ensure that college leadership creates inclusive policies and procedures and puts mechanisms in place to ensure frontline staff are empathetic and supportive of the modern student.

Even when institutions have supportive policies around student-parents, frontline faculty and staff don’t consistently implement them.

Many people feel like they would make better decisions in our students’ place without ever stepping in their shoes. There are no easy decisions; there’s always a tradeoff. We have an exercise to onboard our mentors and other groups that gives them a sense of what student-parents are up against, requiring them to make tough decisions. It might be navigating a domestic violence situation or having to turn down a scholarship because it requires you to go to school full time, and you have to work to support your family. Sometimes, you have to live the experience to understand how convoluted the information about support is and how many structural barriers there are to success.

READ MORE: 3 THINGS TEEN PARENTS NEED CAMPUS LEADERS TO KNOW

Nicole: If I could tell college presidents one thing they could do to serve students, especially student-parents, better, I would encourage them to take a big step back and acknowledge that the higher ed system was not set up for student-parents or marginalized students. Period.

As we think about equity, we have to consider how to include the populations we serve or that we’re trying to serve in decision-making processes and in the creation of support. We must ensure that we put people with lived experience in decision-making positions and people of color around the table.

Student-parent work is racial equity work.

I often say that student-parent work is racial equity work. We know that student-parents are more likely to be students of color—in fact, 40% of all Black female undergraduate students are parenting. Over the last year, many higher education institutions have said they want to commit to advancing racial equity. A truly comprehensive race equity strategy requires that they also take action to remove systemic barriers facing student-parents.

Nicole: An essential first step is to track the parenting status of their students. So many colleges and universities are flying blind in terms of who on their campuses are parenting, what their needs are, and whether they’re graduating. And we know that what doesn’t get measured doesn’t get prioritized or funded.

In terms of the necessary work, I can think of three colleges doing exciting things:

• Monroe College in New York is collecting and tracking the parenting status of its students. They’re pulling data in multiple ways, including an intake survey where students can self-disclose and ask about parenting status when they register for their classes. We’re currently looking at their model to see what guidance it could provide to the broader higher ed community.
• Los Angeles Valley College Family Resource Center is offering more mental health services and virtual activities like family game nights for students’ children. They also simply reach out to student-parents to check in on their wellbeing, helping them feel valued in an uncertain world.
• Morehouse College has developed their Fathers to the Finish Line Initiative to help student fathers complete their degrees. While people might think this issue only impacts mothers, fathers also need support in graduating (in fact, Black fathers drop out at higher rates than any other student-parent group).

ADVANCE STUDENT SUCCESS WITH BETTER DATA

Nicole: Get the money in your students’ hands as quickly as possible and prioritize support for student-parents. We had a student who applied for emergency funding because she was about to be evicted from her apartment. She had also applied for funding from her institution, but her institution responded that they would get back to her in six weeks. A six-week turnaround time is not emergency funding. Money today, versus tomorrow or even next week, could mean the difference between being homeless or staying in an apartment. At Generation Hope, our emergency funding has always had a quick turnaround time—between 48 and 72 hours—because as the leader of the organization, I’ve been in those emergencies, and I know how important each day is to keep a roof over your family’s head or food on the table all while trying to stay enrolled.

Nicole: I’m also very proud of the work of the four institutions that are participating in Generation Hope’s inaugural FamilyU Cohort: George Mason University, Montgomery College, Northern Virginia Community College, and Trinity Washington University. FamilyU is a national technical assistance program designed by Generation Hope and informed by focus group findings we presented in a report earlier this year to increase the number of parenting college students who make it to the graduation stage. This two-year cohort of a select group of colleges and universities provides individual work plans, one-on-one coaching, peer learning opportunities, and access to field experts to shift the student-parent experience at their institutions. Each of the institutions in our inaugural cohort is doing impressive work to collect data on their student-parents and create inclusive policies and services.

Reach out to understand the services these organizations provide, hear the perspective of those who have proximity to underserved student groups, and learn from the students they’re serving.

The first step in partnering with nonprofits to support students is having the conversation. A big part of my job is talking to institutions. I try to have conversations with the presidents at our students’ schools, so they know who we are and what services we provide. For example, it’s important for these colleges to know that at Generation Hope we help students identify high-quality childcare in their communities, and we provide monthly monetary support so that students can afford it. This is critical support for helping them stay in school.

Institutions can begin initiating these conversations themselves. Reach out to understand the services these community organizations provide, hear the perspective of those who have proximity to underserved student groups, and learn from the students they’re serving. Do that, and college leaders will begin to understand what these students experience and consider growing community partnerships and aligning your work to support student-parents.