Parenting Student Success Initiative

Addressing Parenting Students' Needs

In the United States, more than one in five college students, or 3.8 million students are parents. Historically, postsecondary institutions have not prioritized or addressed the unique needs of parenting students, which are impacted by legacies of stigma and intersectional identities. Nearly 74% of parenting students are female, compared to 54% of non-parenting students. Additionally, 55% of undergraduate student parents are students of color, which is higher than the 51% of non-parenting students of color.  

Despite earning higher GPA’s than their non-parenting peers, student parents face significant financial and time demands related to parenting, making college completion an elusive goal. These students tend to be lower-income and are the first in their families to attend college and face challenges related to time poverty, access to affordable childcare, increased financial responsibility, isolation and discrimination that affect their educational attainment. 

Lack of disaggregated data to track and account for parenting students has made it difficult to better understand and provide solutions. Currently there are only five states requiring institutions to collect data on parenting students, Oregon, California, Illinois, Texas, and Minnesota, with other states introducing similar legislation. Collecting data on parenting students is a necessary step to support educational opportunities for adults and their families.  

Parenting students are resilient and committed to their educational dreams and attribute their grit and determination to making a better life for their children. Supporting parenting students is a clear path to economic mobility, for every currently enrolled single mother student (11% of student parents overall) who earn a degree or some college credit are expected to save society $19.9 billion in public assistance spending and earn roughly $256,000 more over their lifetimes than what they would have earned with a high school education. 

A Vision for Generational Impact

By funding and supporting the work of grantee partners, ECMC Foundation strives to make strategic investments so that parenting students can realize their educational dreams, fostering a brighter and more equitable future for them and their children.  

Strategies for Action

ECMC Foundation began evaluating activities and outcomes in partnership with Education Northwest, which began in January 2021, as well as developed strategies to frame what the initiative plans to fund and achieve by December 2025.

Our road map to success includes four key strategies that we expect will lead to identified outcomes, and ultimately achieve progress toward the Foundation’s North Star goal. These four strategies include:

1. Develop permanent data infrastructure and conduct research to identify and better understand the experiences of single mother students.
2. Build the capacity of community colleges with their partners to better serve single mother students.
3. Expand partnerships between community-based organizations and community colleges serving single mother students.
4. Build public will for single mother student success through increased awareness of supportive strategies and policies.

Opportunities for Funding

The initiative’s multiyear commitment will distribute grants and investments through the Foundation’s open letter of inquiry portal. Funding decisions incorporate the latest research from the field and findings from the initiative’s initial round of grants to focus on high-impact strategies so that parenting students can fulfill their educational goals.

Parenting Student Success Initiative History

As one of the few national funders focused on parenting students and identifying single mother students, ECMC Foundation invested $6.5 million dollars from 2016 to 2020 that laid the groundwork for needed systemic change. Since 2021, ECMC Foundation has distributed more than $14 million in grants to 23 organizations and institutions working towards improving outcomes for single mother students, parenting students and their families. 

Learnings from the Field

In alignment with our Strategies for Action, hear from our grantee partners about how investing in single mother student success provides vital learnings and valuable returns.

Strategy #1: Develop data infrastructure and conduct research to identify and better understand the experiences of single mother students.

Strategy #2: Build capacity of community colleges with their partners to better serve single mother students.

Strategy #3: Expand partnerships between community-based organizations and community colleges serving single mother students.

Strategy #4: Build public will through increased awareness of supportive strategies and policies.