4 Ways Colleges Are Making Support Easier to Access

Colleges typically have resources that can help students, but traditional hours, siloed offices, rigid scheduling and awareness gaps can prevent students from using them.

Recent initiatives are trying to remove that friction by bringing support closer to where—and when—students need it.

Here are four things colleges are doing to build support around students’ lives.

1. Give student parents time to study.

For student parents, time poverty—the lack of discretionary time that comes from balancing classes, parenting and, in many cases, paid work—can make completing a degree more difficult.

Childcare often dominates the conversation when colleges seek to address the demands on student parents. But while access to care can help parents attend class, it doesn’t necessarily address another key challenge: finding uninterrupted time outside the classroom to study and complete coursework.

The University of Louisiana System is testing a new approach to give student parents dedicated time to focus on their coursework while keeping their children nearby. Nicholls State University and the University of Louisiana Monroe have partnered with StudyNPlay, a Louisiana-based program that provides supervised play for kids to free up study time for their parents. Parents can study in a designated space while a supervisor watches their children play nearby and within view.

Katie Dawson, associate vice president for enrollment, innovation and talent strategy at the University of Louisiana System, said student parents can currently use StudyNPlay’s existing off-campus study center in Baton Rouge, while Nicholls State and ULM plan to launch dedicated spaces in partnership with StudyNPlay on their campuses next spring.

“Traditional childcare or babysitting requires you to leave your child somewhere, be it at home or at someone else’s house or facility,” Dawson said. “What StudyNPlay has created is a model that is inclusive of parents having quiet study areas, but also the ability to see their children playing with a supervisor within their own reach.”

2. Offer mental health care after hours.

For students balancing school with work, family responsibilities and other demands, mental health support, typically offered during traditional campus hours, may not always be available when they need it. The Technical College System of Georgia is looking to close that gap.

In August the system announced a new statewide initiative to expand mental health support across 16 of its 22 campuses. Through a partnership with Uwill, a digital mental health and wellness platform designed for higher education, students will have access to counseling and crisis support 24-7.

Kim Ellis, coordinator of special populations and career services at the college system, said the expansion is designed to remove some of the barriers that can prevent students from seeking support.

Gwinnett Technical College, which began using Uwill in 2024, served as an early test of the model within the system. Ellis said the experience demonstrated that students would use counseling services when they could access them virtually and on their own schedules. At Gwinnett, about 35 percent of Uwill counseling sessions occurred outside traditional campus counseling hours, according to Adam Ring, co-founder of Uwill.

“We were noticing that students would struggle with things like stress, anxiety or not having any way [to] receive counseling services,” Ellis said. “Some of our colleges do have counselors, but not many of them. So we wanted to really look at the student as a whole and see how we could help them not only in the classroom but with things outside of the classroom that may interfere with them coming onto campus.”

3. Make essential needs easier to navigate.

Colleges and universities offer a wide range of resources designed to help students succeed, but having those supports available doesn’t necessarily mean students know where to find them. For students juggling food insecurity, housing challenges, financial strain or other gaps in basic needs, navigating a web of campus offices can be another barrier to getting help.

Some institutions are trying to eliminate that navigation burden by making it dramatically easier for students to access assistance. Temple University is betting that one way to do that is by putting all essential needs support under one roof.

In August, the public university in Philadelphia opened the Christopher and Julie Barnett Essential Needs Hub, a centralized 26,000-square-foot space that offers students new and expanded resources addressing food and housing insecurity, transportation, clothing, mental and physical health, financial aid, technology access, and other needs.

John Fry, president of Temple, said the hub’s prominent location in the university’s student center was intentional, both to make resources easier to find and to normalize seeking support.

“It’s a space that conveys respect, dignity, access and welcome, and it’s not something hidden away in a corner somewhere where people have to go find it,” Fry said. “It’s right there. It’s out front, and I think the message is that ‘Look, everyone has challenges and struggles. Come here, and this is a community that will serve you.’”

4. Give student parents the first pick of classes.

For student parents, getting the classes they need isn’t always enough; those classes also have to fit around childcare and other responsibilities. Priority registration can give students more control over that balancing act.

Recent research from Trellis Strategies surveyed nearly 400 parenting students at 49 Texas colleges and universities from mid-June through early July to examine the implementation of two state policies designed to support this population. One of those policies, passed in 2023, requires institutions that offer priority registration to any student group to extend the same opportunity to parenting students.

While the benefit can make a difference for those who receive it, the findings suggest many students don’t know it exists. Some 62 percent of respondents said they did not know whether their institution offered early or priority registration, and 79 percent were unaware that parenting students are entitled to priority registration. 

Only 18 percent reported receiving the benefit. But among those who did, 94 percent said the process was easy, and nearly 80 percent said it helped them align their class schedules with childcare responsibilities.

“For a parenting student, the right course at the wrong time isn’t a viable course at all,” said Allyson Cornett, director of research at Trellis Strategies. “It has to fit into the puzzle work of their life and their responsibilities outside of school, and by offering priority registration and letting students take advantage of that, it gives them a better chance to align what they’re doing in school to the rest of their lives outside.”

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