Supporting Student Parents in Rural America

Parenting students face significant barriers to college success, including securing affordable childcare and covering their families’ basic needs, such as housing, food and transportation. Those challenges can be especially acute for student parents in rural areas, where access to services and resources may be limited.

A new report from the Institute for College Access & Success examining how rural-serving institutions support parenting students found that parents make up a greater share of the student population at rural institutions than at institutions over all. Using data from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, researchers found that 26 percent of students at rural institutions identify as parents, compared with 18 percent of students across all institutions.

At the same time, parenting students at public rural-serving institutions are less likely to have access to on-campus childcare. Some 52 percent of public non-rural-serving institutions offer on-campus childcare, compared with 32 percent of public rural-serving institutions.

Erika Roberson, senior policy associate at TICAS, said rural-serving institutions face several challenges in supporting parenting students, including limited funding for childcare and gaps in identifying who their parenting students are.

“The lack of funding and investments makes it difficult for these institutions to be able to offer that service for their parenting students,” Roberson said. “Rural-serving institutions don’t have consistent practices around data collection or data reporting on their student parents, so it’s hard for them to serve students if they don’t know who they are.”

Rural barriers: Rural-serving institutions number 1,087 nationwide, which includes roughly one-third of all historically Black colleges and universities and nearly 20 percent of high-Hispanic-enrolling institutions. Many rural student parents are place-bound and have few nearby postsecondary options, the report found, making rural-serving institutions a critical pathway to education and economic opportunity.

“Parenting students have strong community ties. They also have caregiving responsibilities, so they often don’t have the opportunity to travel and move to a higher education institution,” Roberson said. “They’re often choosing between maybe one or two that’s within a commutable distance from their home, so that’s likely why they’re making up a greater share of these institutions, because there’s just less options.”

As part of the study, researchers also conducted 14 qualitative interviews with rural-serving institutions that offer targeted programs and resources for parenting students. The institutions included public two-year colleges, such as Santa Fe Community College and Spartanburg Community College in South Carolina, as well as public four-year institutions, including Nicholls State University in Louisiana and the University of Mississippi.

Researchers found that rural parenting students experience food insecurity at rates similar to the overall undergraduate population, with about one-quarter struggling to afford food.

Transportation emerged as another key barrier; most institutions interviewed identified it as a challenge to student success. Rural colleges cited limited bus stops, transit schedules that don’t align with class times, difficulty affording gas and costly car repairs as obstacles for parenting students.

“Transportation is a really big barrier for parenting students,” Roberson said. “A lot of parenting students are interested in these high-demand, high-wage careers like nursing or other health-care fields that require them to be in-person at some point.

“If they don’t have reliable transportation, then they can’t get to class, which will have an impact on their ability to persist and complete their degree or credential,” she added.

Supporting student parents: Roberson said the qualitative interviews highlighted creative ways rural-serving institutions are supporting parenting students, including by implementing strategies that require relatively little funding. Butte College in California, for example, brings CalFresh representatives to campus to help student parents apply for food-assistance benefits.

Other institutions have sought to foster a greater sense of belonging among student parents and their families. Some provide “busy boxes” with educational materials and toys in offices such as financial aid, allowing children to stay occupied nearby while their parents meet with advisers or complete paperwork. Others have hosted family-friendly graduation ceremonies where students and their children walk across the stage together.

The report also highlighted policy changes that could help institutions better identify and support parenting students. The Understanding Student Parent Outcomes Act, for example, would establish a standard definition of parenting students for colleges and integrate student-parent data collection into the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.

Roberson said more consistent data collection would give institutions a clearer picture of their parenting student populations and their needs.

“It would be to everyone’s benefit if there was either state or federal legislation that really mandated data collection for student parents,” Roberson said. “Schools can’t serve students if they don’t know who they are.”

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