Despite one in five undergraduate students in the U.S. also raising children while enrolled at their secondary institution, the number of undergraduate student-parents at UT is relatively unknown. This institutional invisibility is the root cause of many of the problems they face on campus.
In order to help them thrive, UT must do more to identify undergraduate student-parents, better connect them with existing resources and customize critical administrative processes, like registration, to meet their needs.
Neuroscience junior Lily Yeager has been navigating her undergraduate student experience as a parent in the absence of any tangible support.
“In terms of the ‘school support,’ I feel like there is nothing,” Yeager said.
UT does not track undergraduate student-parent enrollment or engage with undergraduate parents strategically in discussions about their experiences. Other institutions, like those within the University of California system, publish detailed findings from their research on the experiences of undergraduate student-parents to better inform their efforts in supporting this population.
“It would be amazing to be able to track retention and graduation rates, reach out to them and do focus groups and surveys and just hear more directly from a greater number of students,” said Jeff Mayo, assistant director of the First-Year Experience program at UT.
The only way to establish a program geared specifically to meet the needs of undergraduate student-parents is to learn about their experiences and identify gaps in student services.
While there are Title IX protections for pregnant and parenting UT students, these are not well-recognized by either students or faculty. This leaves students to manage the stressful uncertainty of having to rely on the goodwill of individual professors.
“I have had very understanding professors that have been supportive and chosen to support me, but they have always made it clear that there is nothing saying they have to, so I have just gotten lucky,” Yeager said.
Representatives from both the Title IX and the First-Year Experience offices echoed the need to enhance both student and faculty awareness of Title IX accommodations.
“Part of the process for providing accommodations is educating the community on what the law is and what our faculty and staff members are required to provide to our students,” said Brelynn Thomas, deputy Title IX coordinator for education and prevention.
Mayo said that the First-Year Experience office is currently working on developing a system to work with academic advisors to connect undergraduate student-parents with resources.
This would be welcome development for student-parents like Yeager.
However, the larger issue is the absence of any substantive programs that target undergraduates, like student-parent support groups, student-parent focused child care initiatives or registration assistance to accommodate student-parents’ especially hectic schedules.
“If there was one thing, in terms of an accommodation or something, I would say priority registration,” Yeager said. “Because of daycare, I cannot be in labs at night. I have a time constraint.”
Moving forward, supporting undergraduate student-parents must be a crucial area of focus for UT. Better addressing their needs is essential to closing the economic and opportunity gap that limits the future prospects of this underserved population.
“It is just about including us in what is already there,” Yeager said. “I am very familiar with some of the schools that have graduate family programs. There are resources. Those resources are already there. It is so easy to just apply it to undergrad too. It doesn’t make sense why they wouldn’t.”
No, it doesn’t.
Strelitz-Block is a Plan II sophomore from Austin, Texas.
