Getting a college degree can take a lot of time and energy. Add kids to the mix, and it can feel nearly impossible.
“It is pretty challenging,” said Elizabeth Lugo, a mom of two studying social work and child development at San Diego City College.
Her busy day starts well before she gets to campus and continues after she’s done with class. There’s school drop-off and pickup, dinner, kids’ homework and then her own.
“When you come to school and see other students — not trying to compare, but they don't have children,” she said. “You come with all the stress to school, and their days start so different from us.”
Lugo had her first child at 16. She’s a single mom. She got her GED certificate, learned English and planned her next steps.
“I came and looked at the school and just walked around,” she said. “I was like, ‘I want to be here.’”
This year, San Diego City College is joining a nationwide cohort of colleges working to strengthen their support for student parents. It’s called FamilyU. Over the next two years, college administrators will analyze their existing policies and create new ones to support students with kids.
“We just know that we need to do better as a college to better proactively support them,” said Adan Sanchez, City College’s dean of student affairs.
Sanchez estimates that about 20% of City College students are parents. The library has a family study room with kids’ toys and books, but they want to do more.
The college plans to use bond funding to build a new Welcome Center. That center will include a dedicated space for parents. It will also house offices that manage support services for low-income students and single parents, Sanchez said.
“Instead of having to go from here to another building or two buildings over, either with a stroller or with little kids,” he said.
That would help, Lugo said. She said access to those programs can give student parents the confidence to enroll.
“Sometimes they are afraid to start because they don't know that there's programs that will support them,” she said.
City, Mesa and Miramar Colleges have child development centers on campus. Priority for their childcare services goes to student families, but Sanchez said there’s a waitlist.
“That's going to be one of the partners that we'll be looking at to see if we can do a kind of drop in, drop out kind of situation, or if we need to build something within this space,” he said.
One of the goals for FamilyU is to improve how colleges collect data on student parents. That data can help school leaders prove the need for financial support, Sanchez said.
“How do we not just bring these resources to our students, but how do we validate their existence through data so that we can push and advocate for ongoing funding?” he said.
Following in Mesa’s footsteps
Mesa College participated in FamilyU in 2023. At Mesa, The Stand provides food, clothing and school supplies to students.
Johanna Aleman is the college’s basic needs coordinator. She already knew many of the students they served were parents.
“We couldn't just do surface level stuff,” she said. “We had to start digging in deeper for things.”
Things like campus policies and how they’re enforced.
Campus policy says children can’t be left unattended. They’re not allowed in classrooms, but otherwise, they’re allowed in places like dining halls.
“Even with that, like we had employees who were telling parents, ‘You can't have your kid here,’” Aleman said. “But the guideline is as long as the child, the minor child, is with a guardian or adult, they are allowed on campus.”
Aleman and her team started reminding staff about the policy at the start of the school year. They’re working to add changing tables to campus bathrooms and high chairs to dining halls.
They also created the Family Resource Center. It has kids toys, books, diapers and infant clothing. And there’s room for parents to study.
Della McCullough has brought her daughter here throughout the last two years.
“I would pick her up right out of school and we would come here and we would just sit here and I would need to do homework,” she said. “She was able to occupy herself while I was occupying myself.”
McCullough is a single mom. She’s 32, and she felt disconnected from her younger classmates when she first got to Mesa. Events for student parents helped her find her community.
“I love to share this fact all the time, that it's actually 1 out of 5 students that are parents,” she said. “You could be a parent and I just don't know.”
Student parents have higher grade-point averages than their non-parenting peers. But they’re less likely to graduate on time, according to Generation Hope, the organization that puts on FamilyU. About half of student parents opt for part time schedules, compared to less than a quarter of non-parenting students.
McCullough thinks parents often consider dropping out or putting their education on hold.
“I think we're constantly thinking about if this is going to be the day that we're just going to have to sacrifice what's important to us for the benefit of the family,” she said. “But I think, and I remind myself, that both can be done.”
