Single Parent Support Services
An inclusive campus enhances the educational experiences of all members of the EMU community. To
that end, EMU recognizes that becoming a Michigan school of choice for non-traditional students,
particularly for ethnically diverse low-income single parents who struggle to pursue postsecondary
education, is a commitment worth pursuing. EMU understands that becoming a successful college
student can be a stressful and difficult transition. The transition for single parents is even more difficult.
They are a special population of students who need to be supported differently from traditional
students to insure timely progress to degree completion. Too many single parent students have been
forced to limit course loads, drop classes, miss classes or assignments, and leave school before
completion due to issues directly related to being a single parent.
In May 2012, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) published these findings:
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Twelve percent of students enrolled in post-secondary academic programs are single parents
(with one or more children depending on their income for survival). These parents have less
money to pay for their own educational development, have greater needs to meet when
financial aid does not cover the cost of living, and they accumulate more debt than students
without children
Single parents have ten times more debt after graduating than their childless classmates.
The 2012 U.S. Census Bureau statistics indicated that 84.1% of single parent families included mother
only with child(ren) under 18 and 15.9% represented father only with child(ren) under 18. Additionally,
the Single Mother Guide statistics showed that single mothers often spend over half of their income on
housing expenses and a third on child care, leaving them with less money for educational expenses.
Nearly two-thirds (62%) have an expected family contribution (EFC) of zero compared to 20% of
postsecondary students without children and 18% of married student parents.
Eastern Michigan University has a high proportion of non-traditional students, many of whom are single
parents raising children alone. While Eastern has not formally collected data to determine the number
of students who are parents, especially single parents, two surveys conducted in 2002 provided some
insight into the status of single parent students. In a phone registration survey conducted in winter
2002, over one-third of the 7,000 respondents had children, with 1225 having children under 5 years of
age. In the EMU Child Care Needs Survey (February 2002), findings from the 479 respondents pointed to
child care as a major barrier:
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55% were hindered from completing their degrees
18% were forced to drop out of school for periods of time
15% had failed at least one class
Many of these students cited cost of child care to be their largest hurdle, an understandable fact when
one considers that 43% of the respondents had monthly incomes of under $1,100.
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Challenges Single Parents Face in Pursuit of Education
In general, nontraditional students are more likely to have at-risk factors that make their path to
graduation more complicated. To invest in the retention of this diverse, predominantly female, nontraditional student constituency, EMU must address the barriers/challenges to academic progress and
degree completion. These challenges can be broken down into three major areas: financial constraints
(especially child care expenses), time management, and social pressures.
Financial Constraints
Financial issues have been the greatest concern for many single parent students because they are facing
the challenge of being the main source of income for their family, often without an extended supportive
family or outside resources. In addition to paying for tuition and fees, textbooks, transportation and
parking, these students must manage to pay for housing, groceries and child care. While student loans
are often available, they add to already existing financial burdens not experienced by other students.
Mounting debt sometimes causes the single parent student to leave school without completing their
education. Data supports the fact that the cost of child care is a major deterrent for students in their
pursuit of a college education. In the 2002 Child Care Needs Survey completed by 479 student parents,
child care emerged as a critical need with 74% reporting that they had difficulty finding affordable and
satisfactory child care; 74% needed care for children 5 and under; 44% needed care for infants and
toddlers; and 44% were in need of a child care subsidy. From 2010 – 2013, there has been a total of 69
student accounts sent to collect from the EMU Children’s Institute for lack of payment of child care
expenses. Of the 69 students referred to collection, 49 were single parents and over half of these
students have stopped out or left the university, with financial debt as a major factor.
Time Management
Managing time is a key challenge for single parent students. Because these students often carry more
responsibilities than traditional students, they have less time to devote to their education. They must
balance school, children, work and their own well-being. Pressures to perform academically and achieve
satisfactory academic progress are added to those they already feel from their home and child rearing
responsibilities. In a study on the effect of sociological and psychological belief factors on the academic
success of single-mother college students, multiple participants were concerned about balancing their
time. “For participants [of the study], working hard not only meant compromising their family life to
meet their academic responsibilities, but compromising their social and personal needs as well” (Stone,
Nelson, & Niemann, 1994, p.579).
Social Pressures
There is often a stigma attached to being a single parent student. Peers may not interact with them by
choice, and don’t understand the pressures they face. Sometimes they are viewed as irresponsible,
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assuming that the student parent made a poor choice to become a parent. This isolation can add to the
stress already felt by many single parent students.
Recent or Current Strategies:
1. Strategic Initiative Child Care Scholarship Pilot Program
Implemented in 2004, this Child Care Scholarship initiative sought to invest in a diverse, predominantly
female, non-traditional student constituency by addressing childcare barriers to academic progress and
degree completion, through the provision of $110,000 in child care scholarships awarded to
approximately 40 - 45 student parents per year. The pilot was scheduled to run for a three-year period.
Prior to the start of the program, the allocation of funds to the initiative was reduced to $55,000 due to
impending budget constraints.
A total of 29 student parents received initial scholarships in the first year of the pilot. The evaluation
report following the first year of the pilot indicated that participants reported that as a result of the child
care scholarship, they benefited in a variety of ways such as:
 Opportunity to take more credits (85%)
 Opportunity to spend more time in on-campus academic activities (85%)
 Increased amount and quality of study time (90%)
 Decreased off-campus work hours (95%)
 Improved GPA (68%)
 Reduced level of stress (95%)
Despite the positive outcomes, the initiative was eliminated after the first year due to budget cuts and
has never been reinstated.
2. EMU Children’s Institute
The EMU Children’s Institute (CI) is a nationally-recognized program providing high quality early
childhood education for children 18 months through six years. The Institute does not provide
afterschool care or drop-in care. While the CI serves student families as its first priority, it does not have
the capacity to provide child care for all students who may request support, especially for those needing
infant care or afterschool care. In addition, the cost of care is difficult for student families, especially
single parents, to absorb after the costs associated with attending school and providing for the basic
needs of their family are addressed. The CI provides very limited scholarship funds, as there is no
university support specifically for child care scholarships, so only scholarships established by donors or
the CI itself are available. This also prohibits the CI from offering a sliding scale for child care tuition. The
CI has been successful in being awarded a ‘Great Start Readiness Grant’ each year for over 15 years by
the State of Michigan that provides free full-time child care to those families with four year-olds that
qualify under the grant requirements.
3. Students with Children Student Organization
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A single parent student created the only EMU-recognized “Students with Children’ student organization
for the purpose of providing support to student’s with children through peer/child care support,
programming, fundraising and networking. Every member of the organization has since graduated
(along with its student leadership) and most have obtained graduate degrees. However, the student
organization became inactive when the initial participants completed their degrees.
4. Keys to Degrees Program
EMU is entering the third year of a grant partnership with Endicott College’s Keys to Degrees Program,
funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The initial grant was focused on starting a residential housing
program centered around coaching, academic support, and being an ongoing resource for single parents
ages 18 – 24 with no more than one child. Going into year three of the pilot program, we have retained
50% of the original 10 student participants. We have discovered that there are barriers that exist which
contribute to the attrition of students from the program, especially the lack of funding through the grant
and/or the university for licensed quality child care. These barriers will need to be addressed if the
program is to remain sustainable and serve as a national model.
Recommended Key Actions:
Student support and services need to be focused and specifically geared toward the single parent
student, not folded into what is already provided to our traditional student. To that end, there are four
key actions recommended:
1. Child Care Grants and Financial Assistance Programs
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Establish child care grants funded by EMU with maximum annual amounts or hours of care.
Include an incentivized program for renewal of grants and subsidies to families.
Investigate a school-age drop- in program for after-school and early evening support (exclusive
from the CI).
Design single parent on-campus housing opportunity with possible sliding scale rate structure
Collaborate with the EMU Foundation on a campaign to establish a single student parent child
care scholarship.
2. Wrap Around Support Services (academic and personal)
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Family Resource Center - Create a Family Resource Center on the EMU campus. Locate a space
to accommodate a meeting room, activity room and child care/play space. A full-time
Coordinator would oversee the Center and focus on helping students overcome the obstacles
they encounter as single parent students. This is central to our educational mission, which seeks
to retain students and provide them with an environment and student experience conducive to
academic success. The Center will focus on helping students engage in effective problem solving,
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ensuring proper access to care, academic assistance and other mechanisms of support. Student
retention will increase if there are more resources in place on the campus.
Special Academic Advising and Course Registration Assistance – Academic advisors play a
critical role in helping single parent students manage school in addition to their other
responsibilities. Training advisors to understand and support the unique needs of single parents
is essential. Advisors should recognize diversity within the single-parent group. Some of these
differences include degree of family emotional support, degree of financial support from outside
sources, the age of the student’s children, the student’s age, and whether the student has been
married or divorced. Encouraging students to develop relationships with faculty, as well as
making students aware of appropriate campus resources are important ways for academic
advisors to support single parents, along with asking students what services may be lacking for
single student parents and then advocating for those services.
Workshops: Academic support and personal development –The Family Resource Center and
EMU Children’s Institute will collaborate to offer workshops provided by campus and
community leaders with focus on family development, life skills training and academic success
strategies.
3. Mentoring/Coaching/Peer Support Program
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Mentoring through possible sponsors from the community
Partner with academic departments, such as Social Work, to create internships through the
Family Resource Center and provide interested students with a ‘success’ coach. Framed on the
Keys to Degrees coach concept, coaches would be available to aid and motivate single parents in
their quest to balance school, work, child-rearing, and personal growth.
4. Single Parent Student Organization – Leadership from the Family Resource Center and EMU
Children’s Institute will assist in the development of a parenting organization and website that
will focus on advocacy and program development for student parents.
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