72. Enhance campus support services for pregnant and parenting students

Campus Support Programs 09.6.24

Here’s what the federal government can do:

  • The U.S. Department of Education should strengthen Title IX protections for pregnant and parenting students and ensure that higher education institutions have access to formal guidance on Title IX.
  • The U.S. Department of Education should disaggregate data about student opportunities and outcomes by students’ parenting statuses.
  • Congress should provide targeted funding to increase the participation of parents with lower incomes in postsecondary education through the provision of campus-based childcare services.[i]

Here’s what state government can do:

  • State legislatures should require lactation accommodations at all higher education institutions.
  • State legislatures should strengthen nondiscrimination protections for pregnant and parenting students in their state.

Here’s what institutional leaders can do:

  • Higher education institutions should administer a survey for student parents and use results to strengthen campus support programs that serve pregnant and parenting students.
  • Higher education institutions should ensure that student parents are aware of the resources available to them, including access to single-parent housing, reliable childcare, programs to increase social connectedness, and health supports.
  • Higher education institutions should implement policies that excuse absences related to pregnancy or childcare and provide reasonable accommodations for parenting students as outlined in Title IX.
  • Higher education institutions should ensure that information about support services for student parents is shared in recruitment materials, catalogs, student handbooks, and on publicly available websites.
  • Higher education institutions should respect the reproductive autonomy of pregnant students.

Student parents face significant barriers to college completion, with 52 percent of student parents leaving school within six years without obtaining a degree due to factors such as a lack of access to childcare.[ii] Institutions such as the Wilson College in Pennsylvania are seeking to reduce these barriers through their Single Parent Scholar Program, which provides campus housing and subsidized childcare to eligible single parents. The program provides family-friendly, on-campus housing year-round to single parents and their children while parents pursue a degree full-time.

Students must have the power to make their own decisions about reproduction, including matters associated with contraceptive use, pregnancy, and childbearing. For more information and resources, see the National Women’s Law Center.

[i] See: U.S. Department of Education. Child Care Access Means Parents in Schools Program (CCAMPIS). https://www2.ed.gov/programs/campisp/index.html.

[ii]“Evaluating the Role of Campus Child Care in Student Parent Success”, Institute for Women’s Policy Research. October 2021. https://iwpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Evaluating-the-Role-of-Campus-Child-Care_FINAL.pdf.

[iii]“Single Parent Scholar Program,” Wilson College. https://www.wilson.edu/single-parent-scholar-program.