A student parent with her family.
Credit: Photo by Nikhil Naidu Photography / Courtesy California Competes
About 1 in 8 college students in California is a parent. For these students, college isn’t just about attending class and studying; it’s a daily juggling act that also includes managing households, raising children, and working to stay afloat. Moreover, the additional costs of child care, higher food expenses, and other necessities mean that student parents pay an additional $7,500 per child to attend college. Without significant financial aid, they would need to work at least 50 hours per week at minimum wage to cover these costs.
The precarious balancing act is more than a personal challenge — it’s a consequential issue that spans generations and affects all Californians. When student parents thrive, the benefits ripple across communities and generations, creating economic stability for families, closing racial equity gaps, and strengthening California’s workforce and economy. Yet, their determination to balance work, study and parenting goes largely unnoticed because neither colleges nor the state systematically collects data on their demographics, experiences and outcomes.
This Student Parent Month, we urge higher education leaders, policymakers and communities to change that. To empower bright futures for all Californians and bolster the state’s economy, which increasingly relies on a skilled workforce, California must transform the higher education system to address the needs of student parents and smooth the path to college for the 3.9 million Californians with children who have yet to complete their degrees. And it all starts with better data.
Think of data both as a flashlight and a key. As a flashlight, data illuminates the needs and strengths of student parents, allowing colleges to identify the obstacles they face and the support they need to succeed. As a key, data unlocks a deeper understanding of who California’s student parents are, enabling more informed decision-making and resource allocation to improve outcomes for them and their families.
Right now, California cannot effectively use student parent data in these ways. Only some campuses collect data on student parents and the several that do miss critical data points, such as the number and ages of students’ children, which would be helpful for assessing the need for child care and family-serving housing. Definitions of “student parent” vary between institutions, and within colleges, departments struggle to coordinate data collection efforts, further limiting their ability to leverage data to drive systemic change for student parents.
Recognizing these gaps, our organizations launched The California Alliance for Student Parent Success and identified data collection and utilization as a critical component of our statewide policy agenda to support the postsecondary success and comprehensive well-being of student parents.
To turn California’s student parent data into a flashlight and a key, it should be accessible, accurate and actionable:
- Accessible means that colleges should facilitate information-sharing between campus departments, across colleges, and external sectors like workforce and social services, and share de-identified data publicly.
- Accurate means that colleges and government agencies should establish standardized data collection definitions and procedures statewide.
- Actionable means that the data can be effectively analyzed and responds to the needs of student parents. Data should be collected about the experiences of student parents from enrollment through career, their academic and workforce outcomes, and data disaggregated by key demographics, like race, ethnicity and gender.
California has work to do, but progress is on the horizon, especially with the development of stronger data infrastructure through the California Cradle-to-Career Data system.
Legislation to strengthen data collection for student parents is also underway. This year, our alliance cosponsored its first bill, the GAINS for Student Parents Act (AB 2458), which will require institutions to uniformly collect and report data on student parents and share this data with the Office of Cradle-to-Career Data. This will enable California to evaluate and shape policies and practices that will empower student parents to reach their full potential. The bill also seeks to make college more affordable, addressing financial hurdles student parents face. Now, all that remains is the governor’s signature to make this bill law.
Addressing data gaps will enable California to better tailor resources and policies, streamlining student parents’ educational and career journeys and laying the foundation for a thriving economy. This Student Parent Month, let’s honor their determination to work, study and parent by taking concrete steps to advance their success. Passing legislation like GAINS for Student Parents Act is one critical step. It’s time for California to unite in uplifting the voices and future of student parents and, by extension, the future of California.
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Su Jin Jez, Ph.D., is CEO of California Competes, a nonpartisan policy and research organization focused on identifying solutions to California’s higher education and workforce issues.
Christopher J. Nellum, Ph.D., is executive director of Ed Trust-West, a nonprofit organization advancing policies and practices to dismantle the racial and economic barriers embedded in the California education system.
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