College life is wrought with various obstacles. Figuring out how to maneuver within the world of early adulthood while also tackling student loans, textbooks, and just sorting out who you are and what you want to do with your life is about as hard as pushing an immovable object. Now, close your eyes. Imagine the feelings of stress and worry you feel on a daily basis from course work, jobs, and friends. Imagine the time constraints you feel staying up until three a.m. to finish three papers that are all due tomorrow. Now that that feeling is clear in your mind, imagine a baby crying in the background. Feel the stress of impending papers that must be finished in a few hours, and imagine that feeling on top of the stresses of scheduled feedings, all while trying to find time for naps and to cuddle and enjoy your child. Having a baby is not an easy thing to do with a career, but it is even more difficult while juggling a baby, full-time job, and full-time class load.

According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, there are a total of 4.8 million undergraduate students in the United States raising children while in college, with 71% of those student parents being women. At this point, you might be thinking, so what? Well, the shocking part of this is, of those 4.8 million student parents in our colleges and universities, only 33% of them will receive a degree or certificate within six years of starting their program. This is staggering compared to the 59 % of students who complete a degree program after starting one, 62% of those completing programs being women. The bottom line is this: Student parents are struggling to find success at U.S colleges and universities. So where are we going wrong with student parents on our campuses?

Lack of Facilities

I am a student at an absolutely wonderful College. SUNY Fredonia is more than accepting of varying cultures, life-styles, backgrounds, and interests. With an arsenal of LGBTQ clubs, Women and Gender Studies Programs, Native American Affairs, Anime and Quiddich clubs, Latinos Unidos, and Multicultural Affairs groups, its no wonder why any person could walk on to our beautiful campus and feel accepted. But, as I found out soon after becoming pregnant in the second semester of my Junior year, student parents have an extreme lack of support. Now don’t get me wrong, I love SUNY Fredonia. And Virginia Horvath, President of the College is extremely supportive of every student on her campus. But, when building a college, there are only a certain number of facilities that are truly put on the list of priorities, and baby-changing stations is pretty low on the list. In my time at SUNY Fredonia, I have only found one changing table/family bathroom out of the approximately fifty different bathrooms on campus. One. Single. Bathroom. And this is just the tip of the No-Babies-Allowed-Iceberg. High-chairs, boosters, breast-feeding rooms, adequate day-care. These are all things that are a struggle to find at modern day universities. There are plenty of campuses that provide a child care center, but as the number of student parents rise each year on U.S. campuses, the number of childcare facilities at these campuses is declining. In 2007, 55% of four-year schools had child care facilities, and by 2013, only 51% had child care facilities, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. The funding supplied to the facilities supporting student parents is gradually decreasing over time, causing less and less student parents to be able to complete their degree programs.

Lack of Financial Aid

I am about to start my first semester of graduate school in the fall. At SUNY Fredonia, a single semester’s New York State resident’s tuition for your undergraduate degree is $4,037 for just your basic twelve credit hours of courses. This does not include books, meal plans, dorm rooms, or any other costs associated with school. That is a large price, considering most students normally complete between 15 to 20 credit hours a semester, and each credit hour costs the student $336.70. According to SUNY Fredonia’s “Tuition, Fees, and University Charges” page, when attending as a graduate student, a single semester’s New York State resident’s tuition increases to $6,327 for twelve credit hours, with each credit hour costing $519.70. Currently, I’m enrolled in nine credit hours (or full-time) for my first semester of my graduate program, and my financial aid statement is stating I will owe $13,050 just in tuition and fees. Again, this does not include books or meal plans, which I normally purchase each semester. Instead of boring you with a long, drawn out story as to my financial aid situation, I’ll just summarize and say that I went from having enough financial aid to cover my tuition, taxes, text books, and meal plan in my undergraduate program, to having not even enough to cover my tuition in my graduate program. So, naturally, I began to worry if I would even be able to attend school for another two years. When discussing my concerns with financial aid, I was told to look into scholarships, grants, and awards. Here is what I found: most scholarships, grants, and awards made for student parents are for extremely stringent situations, and there are very few of them that are devoted to one college or university. For example, I found one scholarship that was for a single mother looking to begin an undergraduate program, had financial need, was African-American, and was from a low-income area in New York City. Upon further research, most grants, scholarships, and awards had requirements very similar to this one. I think it is absolutely wonderful that there are people providing for people in underprivileged situations. But I think there should be assistance for a larger variety of people. Along with this, it was absolutely impossible to search through scholarships and grants. There is no access to a central database for national and state grants and scholarships. This particular problem, upon solution, would benefit college students nationally, not just those with children. Image being able to go to school when you’re working hard to be able to take care of your child properly, while also getting little to no assistance to pay for the education that costs about as much a six brand new cars. What do you do? Most people give up, according to the statistics.

Lack of Support Systems

Many student parents lack support systems. According to Higher Education Today and the ACE Center for Policy Research and Strategy (CPRS), between 2011 and 2012, 15.2% of undergraduate students were single parents. These student parents, on average, had approximately two children, while only 65.2% of them were working while in school. These jobs only provided them an annual gross income of $14,071, from which taxes were removed, before child care and college expenses were even taken into account. I have been lucky enough to be able to have a family member take care of my child while I am at work and at school. But according to Child Care Aware, for a single parent to send a child to a child care facility, they must be willing to sacrifice 54.53% of their income, with the average cost of child care at a child care facility being $14,144 for one infant child. Many student parents face a lack of family supports, as a majority of student parents are from low-income households where having a family member not work to provide childcare is not feasible. But these student parents also have a lack of community support in finding child care that is both adequate and cost-efficient for families that have gross incomes of less than $15,000 a year. While most people know that a college degree will increase your annual gross income, how can you justify spending more than your annual gross income in child care when you need a house to live in and food to eat and diapers and clothes and medicine?

How Do We Make A Change?

Now here’s my question: How do we expect these student parents to find success at these schools when they don’t have adequate assistance? If there were no wheel-chair ramps on college campuses, there would be a lot more discussion and more of a push to provide equity to affected students. So why are we not talking about this? Why is there not more of a push to provide equity for student parents on college campuses? How can we help this large group of underrepresented and unaided group of students?

First and foremost, we need to start a conversation across our campuses about these issues. Discuss with Student and Faculty administrations why we don’t have more changing tables, how can we install breast-feeding/pumping rooms, how to bring the cost of campus childcare down. Having this conversation makes it known on our campuses that we are looking for equity and equality for student parents on our campuses. Second, creating support systems for these student parents. Support groups or weekly “Play Dates” that allow student parents to have study time, groups that let student parents know that they are not alone and that they are appreciated and wanted on college campuses might be the catalyst for change in one student’s life path. It may be the difference in a student parent graduating or becoming another number in a statistic. Finally, support organizations that provide aid to student parents in whatever way you can. Organizations like the Pregnant on Campus Initiative, Child Care Aware of America, and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research work to assist student parents in finding equity on campus while attempting to bridge the gap for so many students. To reach out and support these groups, click on the links below. And always remember, in the words of E.E. Cummings, “It takes courage to grow up and become who you truly are.” Have the courage it takes to become a student parent that graduates college, and not another statistic.