“More than one in four undergraduate students in the United States are raising children, and 54% are doing so without a partner,” a recent commentary in EdSource noted. And student parents have to work through systems that aren’t set up to support them, or their children.
“These students, often older, first-generation, and low-income, face challenges that traditional student support systems were never designed to meet,” authors Duke Dela Rosa is the director, and Amrit Dhillon, Arianna Li, and Sue Jung, wrote. “Parenting students also experience food and housing insecurity at disproportionately higher rates than their non-parenting peers. Add the cost of childcare, and the financial burden becomes nearly impossible to bear.”
It’s clear then, that it’s good for everyone – parents, children, and the wider economy – if parents are able to get the education and support they need to enhance their careers. The question is how to do that in a way that works for student parents.
The EdSource commentary focuses on the way in which federal programs designed to help student parents are shrinking at a time when they need to be expanded, and Calbright . But Calbright is taking another approach: redesigning college so that many of the obstacles student parents face are eliminated.
Nearly one in four Calbright students (24%) are parents or caregivers – significantly higher than the 10% average across the California Community College system. Parents enroll in Calbright because it was created for people like them: People who need flexibility, are short on time, and managing many life responsibilities., Calbright was designed with parents’ needs in mind.
- Calbright is entirely online, meaning classes can be accessed from anywhere in the state.
- Calbright classes are modular and flexible, so that students can log in and take them on their own schedules – their education fits around their lives.
- Calbright is career focused: It doesn’t offer traditional degrees, but rather certificates in high demand skills that companies are actively hiring for.
- Classes are also flexibly paced: Students can move as quickly or slowly through them as they need – students work out a timeline that makes sense for them with their support team, and can change their plan if their lives change. Some students, like Katie, complete their classes in just a few months. Others, like Jeremy, take their time to focus on parenting while getting their education. It’s entirely up to them.
- And Calbright courses are currently free to all Californians over the age of 18.
It’s a completely different way to get an education, and it makes a huge difference to student parents like Luana. “If it wasn’t for the program being free, and if it wasn’t for the flexibility to raise my children, I couldn’t do this,” she said. “I want my daughters to see there are a lot of opportunities out there when you put the effort in and put yourself out there. There is a lot we can achieve if we study and get an education, and have a community of support,”
Calbright is also researching ways to connect students to support they are eligible for to meet their basic needs, like medical care and food – something that the writers of the EdSource commentary say is often a stress student parents face. Calbright students are partnering with our research teams to improve awareness and access to the current basic needs programs, such as Medi-Cal, CalFresh, and CalWORKs..
So while student parents deserve all the support they can get, it is also possible to reimagine college to make it a better fit for the needs of student parents. Calbright is proving that this approach benefits everyone.
