When junior Savannah Williams stepped onto the Northern Illinois University campus for the first time, she was overcome with nervousness. With her young daughter in the care of relatives she didn’t fully trust and unsure of whether she could provide for them, Williams struggled to focus on her studies.
But her stress was eased when she learned she was eligible for child care assistance at NIU funded by a recent federal program.
“I was isolated as a new parent,” Williams said, noting that the support wasn’t just financial: “They made sure I had access to housing, they made sure I had access to transportation, food and mental health services.”
It’s the kind of support many parents of university students dream of, a service that allows them to complete their degree. The added pressure placed on student parents can have a negative impact on their mental health, academic performance and overall lives.
Unlike the Chicago area universities, Northwestern, University of Illinois at Chicago and LoyolaDePaul University does not have an on-campus child care center, affiliated child care centers, or child care subsidies for faculty, staff, and students. Columbia University also does not have a child care center.
In fact, at Columbia, employees and students Children work Classes will be cancelled in case of emergency or with prior approval. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Columbia University banned children from its campus. Faculty and students protested, and the university formed a working group to reconsider the decision. It eventually reversed the decision and implemented a new, less restrictive policy.
As of 2023, 38% of the population Institutions and mere 7% of nonprofits The university reported providing child care services on campus.
A federal program funded by the U.S. Department of Education is called CCAMPIS, which stands for Child Care Means Parents in School. The program provides financial assistance to cover the costs of child care and after-school programs.
In addition to financially supporting students, CCAMPIS allocates funds to universities, such as NIU, to support the overall wellness of students’ parents, including the costs of family and program coordinators who meet with CCAMPIS students to make sure they are on track academically and have access to resources such as food, transportation, medical services and mental health referrals.
Christine Schultz, who oversees child care services at Northern Illinois University, said the grant will increase parent engagement at NIU through monthly events such as parent cafes, providing opportunities for student parents to interact and connect.
“It’s really supportive,” said Williams, who has also found connections with other parents in the program. “We learn from each other, we grow from each other, we work through anything we’re struggling with… we really support each other.”
A contrasting story is playing out at DePaul University, more than 60 miles east of DeKalb, where graduate student and parent Ilse Arciniega felt abandoned when the university resumed in-person classes after COVID-19.
Arciniega, the mother of a then-2-year-old daughter, said attending classes from home while simultaneously caring for her daughter finally felt like she had enough time to balance being a student parent.
“I can honestly say that if DePaul University had not moved to a fully online platform, I would not have been able to pass that year,” Arciniega said.
But four years later, she said she feels forgotten on campus as she juggles the demands of being a full-time student, employee and mother.
There is no childcare facility on campus. 2 scholarships It is aimed at students’ parents and is currently run by a university Scholarship PortalArciniega said every day was a mental and physical struggle balancing her grades, finances and caring for her daughter.
“The last few years I’ve had really bad sleep problems and really bad anxiety,” Arciniega said. “I feel like I’m not being the mother I want to be.”
As president of the Mothers of Color Handling Academia, she continues to advocate for resources and support for fellow student parents on and off campus.
Recently, Arciniega and project mentor Ariel Sylvester from DePaul University’s School of Education have also been working to secure a CCAMPIS grant to bring a child care center to DePaul University for low-income parents and their children.
Students like Arciniega, who can’t afford the average child care cost in Chicago, which is $1,000 to $2,500 a month, are doing their best to arrange their schedules around whatever child care they can find.
To be eligible for CCAMPIS funding, universities must comply with certain federal regulations, including meeting all Title IV requirements and, if their CCAMPIS funding exceeds $20 million, providing at least $250,000 in Pell Grants to students in the previous year, but Sylvester said DePaul has met those requirements.
Sylvester serves as a mentor for DePaul University’s Early Childhood Access Consortium for Equity project, which aims to address the shortage of qualified early childhood educators, but advocating for resources and raising awareness among student parents remains one of the top priorities for Sylvester, who was raised by a single mother in the North Lawndale neighborhood.
She said the university’s failure to acknowledge students’ parents and their unique challenges in completing a degree is having a negative impact on their mental health.
“Many of our student parents feel isolated on campus because there isn’t a larger system to support them,” Sylvester said. “Many of them feel unwelcome on campus.”
The lack of mental health resources on college campuses has long been a topic of discussion. American Psychological Association. But students who are also parents, like Arciniega, say they feel their mental health needs are being ignored both on campus and in the classroom.
Arciniega recalls that shortly after her daughter was born during her sophomore year of college, she emailed one of her professors to let him know she was now a parent and to emphasize the unpredictability of parenting and the extra support she might need to navigate the challenges.
Years later, Arciniega still feels frustration that he said his classes were fast-paced and not suited to her situation.
Photo by Ilse Arciniega
“I wasn’t asking for anything,” she said, “I just let him know.”
According to the survey, only 20 percent of college students nationwide are parents of students. Aspen InstituteHowever, students who are parents are more likely to suffer from mental health problems than their non-parental peers.
Of over 45,000 people investigated A significant proportion of student parents reported ongoing stress (43%), feeling overwhelmed (40%), struggling to manage their emotions (29%), experiencing depression (28%) and feeling socially isolated (28%). More than a third (38%) said they had considered dropping out of school in the past 30 days, compared to 25% of non-parent students.
Besides MOCHA, Sylvester believes DePaul also lacks a support system for student parents. Two private foundations Sylvester highlighted external scholarship opportunities on the website for students with children and stressed the need for more resources to welcome and retain more student parents.
The university also does not track the number of students’ parents when conducting its own surveys. Census Data.
“We don’t even know how many parents of students are on campus, so we don’t know how to respond to them,” Sylvester said.
Federal funding from CCAMPIS could help change that. According to a 2019 study: Government Accountability Office According to the report, CCAMPIS helped over 3,300 student parents pay for child care costs.
If DePaul could get funding for child care for night classes, “I think we’d see a huge influx of students,” Sylvester said.
Nicolette Bautista, a sophomore at DePaul University, said that while she has had only limited interaction with MOCHA, the feeling of isolation she has experienced as a student parent on campus has been exacerbated by the lack of child care options.
“I don’t know anyone who has children,” Bautista said. “I wish there was more of a community for people in my situation.”
Bautista, who works the night shift at an Amazon warehouse, said the lack of child care options at DePaul has increased stress, forced her to prioritize remote or shortened class times and prevented her from attending career fairs to make professional connections.
“I feel like I’m just going through school and getting grades, but I don’t really feel like I belong,” Bautista said.
No one knows if or when DePaul will receive federal funding for child care, but Arciniega said there are other things the university can do to support student parents in the meantime.
This includes providing mental health support and strengthening a sense of belonging.
“These are not initiatives that parents of students should be asking for. These are initiatives that should be handled by departments at DePaul University,” Arciniega said. “I’ve thought about this a lot, and I’m like, who am I supposed to tell that to?
“So who’s going to listen?”
This article was published in the Columbia Chronicle.
