As a child, I would mimic my mother’s serious, studious face as I flipped through her textbooks and pretended to read. As a child of a student-parent, I saw firsthand the balancing act it takes to raise a family while pursuing a degree. Nationally, 1 in 5 students are student-parents, many of whom are single mothers navigating a system not built for them. These students face unique barriers to degree or credential completion, which include unaffordable and inaccessible childcare options, a lack of family-friendly policies, and inadequate support for basic needs. In a post-affirmative action landscape, where states are also blocking diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, student-parents are at an immediate risk. Cruel Trump Administration policies, like attacks on the Child Care Access Means Parents in Schools (CCAMPIS) or the One Big Beautiful Bill, collide with the needs of student-parents, who often come from diverse and underserved backgrounds, hindering their access to the resources they are entitled to.

EdTrust has previously challenged the myth that student-parents can finance their education on top of childcare by working minimum-wage jobs and will soon publish additional data regarding student-parent college affordability at community colleges. In states like Texas, institutions are putting data into action for adult learners by developing student-parent-centered pathways. EdTrust-West, in partnership with California Competes: Higher Education for a Strong Economy, co-leads The California Alliance for Student Parent Success (The Alliance), which advances student-parent equity through policy, research, community engagement, and capacity building. The Alliance estimates that approximately 300,000 undergraduate student-parents enroll in college each year in California, with a large majority of them being single mothers, first-generation college students, or students of color. As part of its capacity-building efforts, The Alliance launched its pilot Communities of Practice (CoP) initiative, bringing together diverse stakeholders — student-parents, childcare center directors, institutional researchers, and practitioners — to drive family-inclusive policy and practice change, providing pathways to success for student-parents.

Through the pilot initiative, The Alliance collaborated with Reedley College (RCC) and Long Beach City College (LBCC) for a six-month CoP to support the colleges in collecting data on student-parents to inform institutional policy and practice change. Throughout the process, college teams identified several actions to implement on their campuses, such as expanding family-inclusive spaces where they can gather with their children. The importance of data collection and mandatory reporting on student-parents is linked to the broader need for systemic support in the form of basic needs and financial assistance for student-parents, which is why EdTrust-West is pushing local communities and the state to prioritize the needs of student-parents in education policy.

RCC and LBCC differ in demographics and geography. Still, despite these differences, each college is committed to student success and caters to their students’ specific, campus-based needs. According to student-parents from RCC and LBCC, the biggest challenges they face are balancing childcare, attaining basic needs and housing support, and finding time to study and be a parent. To support these students, both RCC and LBCC developed student-parent hubs and collaborated with local and community partners to distribute resources to student-parents.

RCC and LBCC exemplify the ways different campuses can address similar problems while being intentional about the campus communities they serve. More broadly, what we can learn from the California Alliance for Student Parent Success is the importance of information sharing and ensuring that resources are provided and accessible. While individual campuses and systems may lack data on student-parents and centralized coordination in delivering resources and establishing systems for these students, it’s clear that student-parents, and along with the staff and faculty who serve them, are committed to driving meaningful change through intentional collaboration. The Community of Practice holds the promise of raising the overall standard of support for student-parents across the state and the country — and we should all take note.

As EdTrust-West launches its second CoP cohort (apply here by July 18th), with expanded access to the California State University and University of California systems, the message is clear: parenting students are not an afterthought — they are a growing, vital part of the student body and they deserve systems built for their success.