ALBANY, Ore. – It’s 7:15 on a cold gray Monday morning in May at Linn-Benton Community College in northwestern Oregon. Math professor Michael Lopez, in a hoodie and jeans, a tape measure on his belt, paces in front of the 14 students in his “math for welders” class. “I’m your OSHA inspector,” he says. “Three sixteenths of an inch difference, you’re in violation. You’re going to get a fine.”

He’s just given them a project they might have to do on the job: figure out the rung spacing on an external steel ladder that attaches to a wall. Thousands of dollars are at stake in such builds, and they’re complicated: Some clients want the fewest possible rungs to save money, others a specific distance between steps. To pass inspection, rungs must be evenly spaced to within one sixteenth of an inch, the top rung exactly flush with the top of the wall.

The exercise could be an algebra problem, but Lopez gives them a six-step algorithm that doesn’t use algebraic letters and symbols. Instead, they get real-world industry variables: tolerances, basic rung spacing, wall height.

Lopez breaks the class into five teams. Each team is assigned different wall heights and client specs, and they get to work calculating where to place the rungs. Lopez will inspect each team’s work and pass or fail the job.

Math is a giant hurdle for most community college students pursuing welding and other career and technical degrees. About a dozen years ago, Linn-Benton’s administration looked at their data and found that many students in career and technical education, or CTE, were getting most of the way toward a degree but were stopped by a math course, said the college’s president, Lisa Avery. That’s not unusual: Up to 60 percent of students entering community college are unprepared for college-level work, and the subject they most often need help with is math.

The college asked the math department to design courses tailored to those students, starting with its welding, culinary arts and criminal justice programs. The first of those, math for welders, rolled out in 2013.

More than a decade later, welding department instructors say that math for welders has had a huge impact on student performance. Since 2017, 93 percent of students taking it have passed, and 83 percent have achieved all the course’s learning goals, including the ability to use arithmetic, geometry, algebra and trigonometry to solve welding problems, school data show. Two years ago, Linn-Benton asked Lopez to design a similar course for its automotive technology program; they began to offer that course last fall.

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Math for welders changed student Zane Azmane’s view of what he could do. “I absolutely hated math in high school. It didn’t apply to anything I needed at the moment,” said Azmane, 20, who failed several semesters of math early in high school but last year got a B in the Linn-Benton course. “We actually learned equations I’m going to use, like setting ladder rungs,” he said.

Linn-Benton’s aim is to change how students pursuing technical degrees learn math by making it directly applicable to their technical specialties.

Some researchers think these small-scale efforts to teach math in context could transform how it’s taught more broadly.

Among strategies to help college students who struggle with math, giving them contextual curriculums seems to have “the strongest theoretical base and perhaps the strongest empirical support,” according to a 2011 paper by Columbia University Teachers College professor emerita Dolores Perin. (The Hechinger Report is an independent unit of Teachers College.)

Perin’s paper echoed the results of a 2006 study of math in CTE involving 131 CTE high school teachers and almost 3,000 students. Students in the study who were taught math through an applied approach performed significantly better on two of three standardized tests than those taught math in a more traditional way. (The applied math students also performed better on the third test, though the results didn’t reach the statistical significance threshold.)

So far, there haven’t been systematic studies of math in CTE at the college level, said James Stone, director of the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education at the Southern Regional Education Board, who ran the 2006 study.

Stone explained how math in context works. Students start with a practical problem and learn a math principle for solving it. Next, they use the principle to solve a similar practical problem, to see that it applies generally. Finally, they apply the principle on paper, in say, a standardized test.

“I like to say math is just like a wrench: It’s another tool in the toolbox to solve a workplace problem,” said Stone. “People learn almost anything better in context because then it has meaning.”

Linn-Benton dean Steve Schilling offers an example. Carpenters use a well-known 3-4-5 rule to get a square corner — lay out two boards at a square angle and mark one board at 3 feet and the other at 4 feet. Now a straight line joining the two marks should measure exactly 5 feet—if it doesn’t, the boards are out of square.

The rule is based on the Pythagorean theorem, a method for calculating the lengths of a right triangle’s sides: a² + b² = c². When explaining to students why the theorem describes the rule, the instructor uses math terms — “adjacent side,” “opposite side,” “hypotenuse” — that they’ll need to use on a math test, said Schilling. When using practical skills like the 3-4-5 rule on a project, “at first, they don’t even realize they’re doing math,” he said.

Related: Federal relief money boosted community colleges, but now it’s going away

Oregon appears to be one of the few places where this approach is spreading, if slowly.

Three hours south of Linn-Benton, Doug Gardner, an instructor in the Rogue Community College math department, had long struggled with a persistent question from students: “Why do we need to know this?” The answer couldn’t just be that they needed it for their next, higher-level math class, said Gardner, now the department’s chair. “It became my life’s work to have an answer to that question.”

Meanwhile, Algebra I was a huge barrier for many Rogue students. About a third of those taking the course or a lower-level math course failed or withdrew. That meant they had to retake the class and likely stay another term to graduate; since many were older students with families and obligations, hundreds dropped out, school administrators said.

For those who stayed, lack of math knowledge hurt their job skills. Pipe fitters, for example, are among the higher-paid welders, said welding department chair Todd Giesbrecht, but they need a solid understanding of the math involved. “Whether they’re making elbows, whether they’re making dump truck bodies, they’re installing steam pipe, all of those things involve math,” he said.

So, in 2010, Gardner applied for and got a National Science Foundation grant to create two new applied algebra courses. Instead of abstract formulas, students would learn practical ones: how to calculate the volume of a wheelbarrow of gravel and the number of wheelbarrows needed to cover an area, or how much a beam of a certain size and type will bend under a certain load.

Since then, the pass rate in the applied algebra class has averaged 73 percent while that of the traditional course has continued to hover around 59 percent, according to Gardner. Even modest gains like that are hard to achieve, said Navarro Chandler, a dean at the college. “Any move over 2 percent, we call that a win,” he said.

One day in May, math professor Kathleen Foster was teaching applied algebra in a sun-drenched classroom on Rogue’s wooded campus and launched into a lesson about the Pythagorean theorem and why it’s an essential tool for building home interiors and steel structures.

She presented the formula, then jumped to illustrated exercises: What’s the right length for diagonal braces in a lookout tower to ensure that the structure will hold? What length does the diagonal top plate for a stair wall need to be to ensure that the wall’s corners are perfectly square?

James Butler-Kyniston, 30, who is pursuing a degree as a machinist, said that the exercises covered in Foster’s class are directly applicable to his future career. One exercise had them calculate how large a metal sheet you would need to manufacture a certain number of parts at one time, a skill he’s used in the lab. “Algebraic formulas apply to a lot of things, but since you don’t have any examples to tie them to, you end up thinking they’re useless,” he said.

Related: Proof Points: Shop class sometimes boosts college going, Massachusetts study finds

Unlike at Linn-Benton, students at Rogue in any degree field can take this course, so some of the applied examples don’t work for everyone. Butler-Kyniston said he thinks applied math works better if it’s tailored to a specific set of majors.

Still, Foster’s class could rescue the college plans of at least one student. Kayla LeMaster, 41, is on her second try at a two-year degree. She had to drop out in 2012 after getting injured in a house fire. She’s going for a degree that will let her transfer to the University of Oregon to major in psychology; she hopes to eventually work as a school counselor or in some other job supporting kids.

But her graduation from Rogue hangs by a thread because she needs a math credit. She struggled in the traditional algebra class and had to withdraw, and the same happened in a statistics course. Applied algebra is her last chance. “When you add the alphabet to math, it doesn’t make sense,” she said. By contrast, in the examples in Foster’s class, “you get into that work mode, a job site somewhere, and you can see the problem in your head.” She got an A on her first test. “I’m getting it,” she said.

Gardner worries about the consequences of the traditional abstract approach to teaching math. When he was in college, “nobody ever showed me one formula that calculated anything really interesting,” he said. “I just think we’re doing a terrible job. Applied math is so fun.”

Oregon’s leaders appear to see merit in teaching math in context. In 2021, state legislators passed a law requiring all four-year colleges to accept an applied math community-college course called Math in Society as satisfying the math requirement for a four-year degree. In that course, instead of studying theoretical algebra, students learn how to use probability and statistics to interpret the results in scientific papers and how political rules like apportionment and gerrymandering affect elections, said Kathy Smith, a math professor at Central Oregon Community College.

“If I had my way, this is how algebra would be taught to every student, the applied version,” said Gardner. “And then if a student says, ‘This is great, but I want to go further,’ then you sign up for the theoretical version.”

At the level of individual schools, lack of money and time constrain the spread of applied math. Stone’s team works with high schools around the country to design contextual math courses for career and technical students. They tried to work with a few community colleges, but their CTE faculty, many of whom are part-timers on contract, didn’t have time to partner with their math departments to come up with a new curriculum, a yearlong process, Stone said.

Linn-Benton was able to invest the time and money because its math department was big enough to take on the task, said Avery. And both Linn-Benton and Rogue may be outliers because they have math faculty with technical backgrounds: Lopez worked as a carpenter and sheriff’s deputy and served three tours as a machine gunner in Iraq, and Gardner was a construction contractor who still designs houses. “I have up to 16 house plans in the works during construction season,” he said.

Back in Lopez’s class, on a sunny Wednesday, students are done calculating where their ladder rungs should go and now must mark them on the wall. One team struggles. “I don’t understand any of this,” says Keith Perkins, 40, who’s going for a welding degree and wants to get into the local pipe fitters union.

“I know, but you’re not doing the steps in the right order,” says Lopez. “Walk me through it. Tell me what you did, starting with step 1.”

As teams finish up, Lopez inspects their work. “That’s one thirty-second shy. But I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” he tells one group. “OSHA’s not going to knock you down for that.”

Three teams pass, two fail — but this is the place to make mistakes, not out on the job, Lopez tells them.

“This stuff is hard,” said Perkins. “I hated math in school. Still hate it. But we use it every day.”

This story about math in CTE courses was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast.

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For Janelle Bell, a 39-year-old working mom, completing her degree wasn’t financially or personally possible. Her priority was providing for her family on an annual salary of just $30,000. Drowning in $40,000 of student loan debt, she was forced to drop out of college and work full time.

Janelle’s story is all too familiar throughout the U.S. — stuck in a low-paying job, struggling to make ends meet after being failed by college. Roughly 40 million Americans have left college without completing a degree — historically seen as a golden ticket to the middle class.

Yet even with a degree, many fall short of economic prosperity.

Data from 1 in 4 higher education institutions shows that, a decade after enrolling, the average salary for college attendees is less than the average salary of high school graduates.

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A majority (56 percent) of Americans don’t think that a college degree is worth the cost, a recent survey found. College enrollment dropped by 8 percent from 2019 to 2022, and Americans are sending a clear message: They need and want more options than just a college degree to make a good living. With the average price of tuition and fees across private and public universities increasing over 130 percent in the last two decades, who can blame them?

These factors prompt Americans like Janelle to seek alternative paths into the middle class.

As college enrollments fell over the last decade, the number of apprenticeships increased by more than 50 percent, and nearly half of American workers now say they have some form of alternative credentials. Clearly, Americans want affordable, fast, flexible options with a high return on investment.

Policymakers must respond to this overwhelming shift in public opinion and start helping Americans pay for these college alternatives.

One approach: Expand the federal Pell Grant program in order to give Americans greater ownership of their education journeys and the financial freedom to pay for alternative programs that lead to a better life.

Since its authorization in 1965, Pell has awarded need-based federal financial aid to more than 80 million low-income students to pay for college. In the 2022-23 academic school year, 34 percent of undergraduate students received a Pell Grant.

Yet, research shows that Pell students graduate at a rate of 18 percentage points less than their non-Pell peers. In short, the large number of Pell aid recipients is not leading to a significantly higher number of lower-income Americans earning college degrees.

In its current state, the program is not meeting its founding goals. That’s why it’s time to update this nearly 60-year-old federal program to meet the educational needs and demands of Americans today.

During his State of the Union speech, President Biden signaled his intent to “continue increasing the Pell Grants to working- and middle-class families” and ensure that college remains affordable. His fiscal year 2025 budget proposal includes a $2.1 billion increase in federal funding as part of the administration’s plan to double the maximum Pell Grant award by 2029.

But this doesn’t go far enough. We must also expand this access to Americans like Janelle, who need to be able to pay for short-term, nondegree education options.

Related: OPINION: Here’s why a costly college education should not be the only path to career success

Thankfully, the Bipartisan Workforce Pell Act, expected to be up for a full vote in the House of Representatives this year, would expand the Pell Grant program to include affordable and flexible short-term career education programs.

The bill would also create standards for these programs, to ensure that they provide the training necessary for today’s most in-demand industries and meet employer hiring requirements.

Giving Americans more access to educational routes without the high price tag of a four-year degree would create a new, more diverse and skilled talent pool that we could easily connect to employers looking to fill in-demand jobs.

This modern talent pool would benefit the entire economy. Manufacturing, for instance, is still recovering from the pandemic and is hungry for skilled talent. The National Association of Manufacturers recently projected that roughly 2.1 million manufacturing jobs could go unfilled by 2030.

Many of these jobs require training beyond a high school diploma, and short-term programs have proven successful at filling that gap. This is particularly important as more sectors become increasingly tech driven. For example, there is a pressing need for data analytics and digital skills that we know can be quickly taught by nondegree programs.

The median salary for U.S. high school graduates with no college experience is a little over $44,000 — which doesn’t cover the roughly $4,300 a month that a single person needs to afford today’s living expenses.

Americans who completed programs at the national workforce development nonprofit we run are earning wages that are higher than those of U.S. high school grads without a college degree, according to our latest Wage Gain Analysis.

In a study of 2018-22 program completers, University of Virginia researchers found that three-plus months after completion, our learners’ average annual wages had increased from $26,000 to $50,000 — more than 92 percent.

These are life-changing wage increases that can help a family afford long-term housing, allow a parent to go from working two jobs to one or enable these Americans to pay for basic medical care.

After Janelle completed her training with us and landed a job, her annual wages increased by 66 percent, and today she’s a successful technical project coordinator earning $50,000 a year. Her career promises continued upward mobility, opening new financial opportunities that seemed unattainable just a few years ago, so that she and her family can thrive.

Moving Americans from low-wage jobs into family-sustaining careers is possible. Imagine how many more lives could be changed if we gave more people the power to use federal Pell aid to pay for these pathways.

College degrees should remain one of the many learning options available to Americans wanting to further their education. But it’s time for policymakers, workforce development leaders and businesses to advocate for lower-cost, short-term education opportunities, and that starts with passing the Bipartisan Workforce Pell Act.

Connor Diemand-Yauman and Rebecca Taber Staehelin are co-CEOs of Merit America.

This story about college alternatives was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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After four years battling a chain of for-profit cosmetology schools in court, and many more years struggling with debts caused by those schools, about 150 students will receive some financial relief.

As part of a settlement finalized this week in a class action lawsuit, La’ James International College, which is based in Iowa, will pay current and former students who joined the lawsuit $1,500 each. It will also discharge debts those students owed to the school and make changes in how it communicates about financial aid.

The suit was brought against La’ James International College in 2020 following a Hechinger Report investigation into cosmetology schools in Iowa. Our reporting showed how the business model of beauty schools can help for-profit schools rake in profits while pushing students deep into debt for an ultimately low-paying career.

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The lawsuit, which was brought on behalf of current and former students by the nonprofit legal and advocacy organization Student Defense, accused La’ James of delaying financial aid payments and causing them financial hardship in violation of the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act.

“Students rely on their financial aid to stay afloat while they pursue their goals – and La’ James pulled that out from under them,” Student Defense’s litigation director, Eric Rothschild, said in a statement. “When for-profit colleges engage in such practices, hard-working students pay the price.”

La’ James did not respond to request for comment.

Most colleges disburse financial aid each semester, but beauty schools work differently. Students are required to clock a certain number of hours either in class or working in the school’s salon practicing their skills on paying customers. Financial aid payments are supposed to be made after students hit certain hour benchmarks, but students said La’ James often delayed those payments for months, so that they had to take out other loans to meet daily living expenses.

Cosmetology students in Iowa must complete more hours of training than those in any other state: 2,100 hours. (Most states require 1,500 hours.) Many for-profit beauty schools in Iowa have fought fiercely to keep it this way, lobbying hard against proposed changes. The state cosmetology school association has also protected its monopoly in this educational market, suing a community college that wanted to open a cosmetology program in 2005.

Related: Tangled up in debt

Many Iowa cosmetologists told Hechinger reporters that they spent a significant portion of their clock hours sitting around waiting for customers, not learning or practicing anything.

A Hechinger analysis showed that the more time a state requires for cosmetology training, the more debt aspiring hairdressers tend to take on. Yet the median annual pay for a cosmetologist is $35,000. 

According to the most recent federal data, La’ James programs cost up to $20,000, while graduates from their schools make anywhere from $23,000 to $30,000 annually.

The Student Defense lawsuit is not the first time the school has found itself in legal jeopardy. The chain was sued in 2014 by the Iowa attorney general’s office, which accused it of deceptive marketing and enrollment practices. That suit resulted in a settlement in which La’ James forgave more than $2 million in student debt, paid a $500,000 fine and agreed to not make false or misleading statements about financial aid disbursements.

In 2021, however, the attorney general’s office found that the school was misleading students about financial aid, and once again entered into a settlement where the school forgave more than $460,000 in institutional debt.

This story about cosmetology schools was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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JERSEY CITY, N.J. — When Keischa Taylor sees fellow student-parents around her campus, she pulls them aside and gives them a hug.

“I tell them, ‘Don’t stop. You’ve got this. You didn’t come this far to stop. You’re not going to give up on yourself.’ ”

Taylor is exceedingly well qualified to offer this advice. She began her college education in her early 20s, balancing it with raising two sons and working retail jobs. And she just finished her bachelor’s degree last semester — at 53.

It’s a rare success story. Student-parents disproportionately give up before they reach the finish line. Fewer than four in 10 graduate with a degree within six years, compared to more than six in 10 other students.

Many have long had to rely on themselves and each other, as Taylor did, to make it through.

Now, however, student-parents are beginning to get new attention. A rule that took effect in California in July, for example, gives priority course registration at public universities and colleges to student-parents, who often need more scheduling flexibility than their classmates. New York State in September expanded the capacity of child care centers at community colleges by 200 spots; its campus child care facilities previously handled a total of 4,500 children, though most of those slots — as at many institutions with child care on campus, nationwide — went to faculty and staff.

Taylor put her sons in a Salvation Army daycare center when they were younger. “It’s a matter of paying for college, paying for the babysitter or sneaking them into class,” Taylor recalled, at Hudson County Community College, or HCCC, where she went before moving on to Rutgers University. Even though the community college is among the few that have improved their services for student-parents, she remembered asking herself, “How am I going to do this?”

Parents with children comprise a huge potential market for colleges and universities looking for ways to make up for the plummeting number of 18- to 24-year-olds and states’ growing need for workers to fill jobs requiring a college education. Many of these parents already have some college credits. More than a third of the 40.4 million adults who have gone to college but never finished have children under age 18, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, or IWPR.

“If you want to serve adult learners, which colleges see as their solution to enrollment decline, you have to serve student-parents,” said Su Jin Jez, CEO of California Competes, a nonpartisan research organization that focuses on education and workforce policies.

Another reason student-parents are more visible now: The Covid-19 pandemic reminded Americans how hard it is to be a parent generally, never mind one who is juggling school on top of work and children.

Related: The hidden financial aid hurdle derailing college students

“A lot of the current energy has come from the focus on child care crises,” said Theresa Anderson, a principal research associate at the nonprofit research organization the Urban Institute. “Student-parents are at the intersection of that.”

There’s also new attention to the benefits for children of having parents who go to college.

“The greatest impact on a child’s likelihood to be successful is the education of their parents,” said Teresa Eckrich Sommer, a research professor at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research.

Lori Barr dropped out of college when she got pregnant at 19, but went back as a mother and ultimately got a master’s degree. With her son, Minnesota Vikings linebacker Anthony Barr, she later co-founded a scholarship organization for single student-parents in California and Minnesota called Raise The Barr.

“Whatever we’re doing to support the parent directly impacts the child,” Barr said. “A parent can’t be well if the child’s not well, and vice versa.”

The effect works two ways, Sommer said. In a study she co-authored of an unusual program that gives college scholarships to both high school students and their parents in Toledo, Ohio, the Institute for Policy Research found that students and parents alike performed at or above average, despite what Sommer noted were financial challenges and limited academic preparation.

“Call it mutual motivation. The children helped the parents with technical issues. The parents helped the children with time management,” she said. “We think of kids as a barrier to student success. We have to turn that on its head. Kids are a primary motivator to student success.”

Tayla Easterla was enrolled at a community college near Sacramento, California, when her daughter was born prematurely four years ago; she took her midterms and finals in the neonatal intensive care unit. “I just found that motherly drive somewhere deep inside,” said Easterla, 27, who now is majoring in business administration at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

Krystle Pale is about to get her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz. When she looks at her children who live with her, who are 5, 7, 12 and 13, “I want better for them. I just want them to have a better life,” said Pale, choking up.

Sydney Riester, of Rochester, Minnesota, who is about to earn her dental assistant associate degree, also said her children — ages 3, 6 and 7 — were foremost in her planning. “These kids need me, and I need to get this done for them,” Riester said.

Related: ‘We’re from the university and we’re here to help’

There’s a surprising lack of information about whether students in college have dependent children. Most institutions never ask. That is also slowly changing. California, Michigan, Oregon and Illinois have passed legislation since 2020 requiring that public colleges and universities track whether their students are also parents. A similar federal measure is pending in Congress.

“Ask community college presidents what percentage of their students are parents, and they’ll say, ‘That’s a really good question. I’ll get back to you,’ ” said Marjorie Sims, managing director of Ascend at the Aspen Institute, one of a growing number of research, policy and advocacy organizations focusing on student-parents.

Nearly one in four undergraduate and nearly one in three graduate students, or more than 5.4 million people, are parents, the Urban Institute estimates. More than half have children under age 6, according to the IWPR.

Seventy percent of student-parents are women. Fifty-one percent are Black, Hispanic or Native American. Student mothers are more likely to be single, while student fathers are more likely to be married.

Among student-parents who go to college but drop out, cost and conflicts with work are the most-stated reasons, various research shows; 70 percent have trouble affording food and housing, according to the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice at Temple University.

Student financial aid is based on an estimated cost of attendance that includes tuition, fees, books, supplies, transportation and living expenses, but not expenses related to raising a child. The out-of-pocket cost of attending a public university or college for a low-income parent can be two to five times higher than for a low-income student without children, according to the advocacy group The Education Trust.

A student-parent would have to work 52 hours a week, on average, to cover both child care and tuition at a public university or college, EdTrust says. A separate analysis by California Competes found that students in that state who have children pay $7,592 per child a year more for their educations and related expenses than their classmates who don’t have kids.

But “when they apply for financial aid, they get financial aid packages as if they don’t have children. It’s ludicrous,” said Jez, at California Competes.

Forty-five percent of student-parents who dropped out cited their need to provide child care as a significant cause, a survey released in February found. Yet the number of colleges and universities with on-campus child care has been dropping steadily, from 1,115 in 2012 to 824 today, federal data shows. That’s a decline of 291 institutions, or 26 percent.

Fewer than four in 10 public and fewer than one in 10 private, nonprofit colleges and universities have on-campus child care for students, an analysis by the think tank New America found. Ninety-five percent of those campus child care centers that existed in 2016 — the most recent year for which data is available — had waiting lists, and the number of children on the average waiting list was 82, according to the IWPR. Other students couldn’t afford the cost.

Related: When a Hawaii college sets up shop in Las Vegas: Universities chase students wherever they are

“Colleges and universities that enroll student-parents should be committed to serving their needs,” said Christopher Nellum, executive director at EdTrust-West and himself the son of a student-mother who ultimately dropped out and enlisted in the military, finding it was easier to be a parent there than at a community college. “It’s almost willful neglect to be accepting their tuition dollars and financial aid dollars and not helping them succeed.”

Even where child care is available and spots are open, it’s often too expensive for students to manage. More than two-thirds of student-parents in Washington State said they couldn’t afford child care, a state survey last year found. About half of student-parents nationwide rely entirely on relatives for child care.

Hannah Allen, who goes to HCCC, gets up at 5 a.m. to get her three kids ready for the day — first the 4-year-old, then the 6-year-old, then the 8-year-old. “I go down the line,” she said. Her schedule is so tight, she has a calendar on her refrigerator and another on the wall.

She can’t drop off her children at school or daycare earlier than 8:30 or pick them up later than 5. “When my kids are in school is when I do as much as I can.” She calls her school days “first shift,” while her time at home at night is “second shift.”

“First you put your kids, then you put your jobs, then you put your school and last you put yourself,” said Allen. “You have to push yourself,” she said, starting to cry softly. “Sometimes you think, ‘I can’t do it.’ ”

There is a little-noticed federal grant program to help low-income student-parents pay for child care: Child Care Access Means Parents in School, or CCAMPIS. Last year CCAMPIS was allocated about $84 million; the Government Accountability Office found that student-parents who got CCAMPIS’s subsidies were more likely to stay in school than students generally. But there were more students on the waiting list for it than received aid. A Democratic proposal in the Senate to significantly increase funding for the program has gone nowhere.

The Association of Community College Trustees, or ACCT, is pressing member colleges to make cheap or free space available for Head Start centers on their campuses in the next five years. Fewer than 100 of the nation’s 1,303 two-year colleges — where more than 40 percent of student-parents go — have them now, the ACCT says.

Related: Aging states to college graduates: We’ll pay you to stay

These things are a start, but much more is needed, said Chastity Lord, president and CEO of the Jeremiah Program, which provides students who are single mothers with coaching, child care and housing. “When your child is sick, what are you going to do with them? It becomes insurmountable. Imagine if we had emergency funding for backup child care.”

Jen Charles struggled with child care as she tried to earn a degree and become a social worker from the time she was 19, when she had a son who was born with disabilities. He was followed by a daughter. Charles was also working, as an administrative assistant and, later, a paralegal.

“When things were going smoothly, I would enroll for one class and say, ‘I’m going to get through this,’ ” she said. But it proved too much. And even though Charles, now 49, got an information technology certification last year through the continuing education arm of HCCC, earning a full-fledged degree “became kind of an extinguished dream.”

As important as an education was to her, she said, “your priority becomes being able to sustain your family — their well-being, their needs being met, a roof, food. All of these other things take precedence. And where in there do you fit your papers that are due, or studying for your quiz? Is that at 10 o’clock at night, when you’re exhausted?”

Just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, HCCC has steadily added programs to support the parents among its 20,000 students. It has set aside “family-friendly” spaces in libraries and lounges and holds events for parents with kids, including movie nights, barbecues, trick-or-treating and a holiday tree-lighting ceremony. There’s a food pantry with meals prepared by the students in the college’s culinary program.

Student-parents get to register first for courses. College staff help with applications to public benefit programs. Lactation rooms are planned. And there are longer-range conversations about putting a child care center in a new 11-story campus building scheduled to open in 2026.

The college’s 20,000 students are largely poor and the first in their families to go to college, said Christopher Reber, HCCC’s president, and many are not native English speakers. Ninety-four percent qualify for financial aid. Having children, Reber said, “adds insurmountable challenges to that list of insurmountable challenges.”

There’s an even more immediate motivation for the two-year college to support its student-parents. It graduates only 17 percent of students, even within three years, which is among the lowest proportions in the state.

“If a student doesn’t know where their next meal is coming from, it doesn’t matter how much academic support you offer — the student is not going to succeed,” said Reber, in his office overlooking downtown Jersey City.

Related: One college finds a way to get students to degrees more quickly, simply and cheaply

With a grant it got in January from the Aspen Institute’s Ascend, HCCC is expanding its work with the housing authority in Jersey City to help student-parents there enroll in and complete job-focused certificate programs in fields such as bookkeeping and data analytics, hiring a coordinator to work with them and appointing an advisory committee made up of student-parents.

It can be hard to win the trust of student-parents, said Lori Margolin, HCCC’s associate vice president for continuing education and workforce development. “Either they’ve tried before and it didn’t work out, so they’re reluctant to go back, or it’s too much of an unknown. ‘Do they care that I have children and I’m not going to be able to take classes at these times?’ ”

Like other schools, HCCC had what Reber called “Neanderthal” rules for student-parents. They weren’t allowed to bring their kids to campus, for example.

“I remember one student, a single mother, relying on parents and friends to watch her baby. The only time she could study was late at night [in the library], but the library said no.”

That rule was dropped, with more changes planned. A new program will reward student-parents with financial stipends for doing things such as registering early and researching child care options, said Lisa Dougherty, senior vice president for student affairs and enrollment at HCCC.

A few other colleges and universities have programs designed for student-parents. Misericordia University in Dallas, Pennsylvania provides free housing for up to four years for up to 18 single mothers, who also get academic support and tutoring, priority for on-campus jobs and access to a children’s library and sports facilities.

At Wilson College in Pennsylvania, up to 12 single parents annually are awarded grants for on-campus housing and for child care, and their children can eat in the campus dining hall for free.

St. Catherine University in Minnesota subsidizes child care for eligible student-parents and has child-friendly study rooms.

And Howard Community College in Maryland, whose president was once a student-parent, provides mentorship, peer support, career counseling, financial assistance and a family study room in the library.

“That may not seem like a big deal, but those are the messages that say, ‘You belong here, too,’ ” Lord said.

These efforts have so far helped a small number of students. Forty single mothers have graduated from the Misericordia program since it was launched more than 20 years ago, for instance.

Some of the obstacles for student-parents are hard to measure, said Jessica Pelton, who finished community college after having a daughter at age 20 and ultimately graduated from the University of Michigan, where her husband also was enrolled.

“You’re typically isolated and alone,” said Pelton. “I just kind of stuck to myself.”

She would often miss out on nighttime study groups with classmates who lived on campus. “Their priorities are not to go home, make dinner and put their kid to bed. We don’t have the option to go party. We’re not here on our parents’ money. We’re paying our own way.”

Some faculty offered to let her bring her daughter to class, she said. “It really meant a lot to me, because it made me feel like a part of campus.”

Finding fellow student-parents helps, too, said Omonie Richardson, 22, who is going to college online to become a midwife while raising her 1-year-old son and working as a chiropractic assistant 35 hours a week in Fargo, North Dakota.

“I felt very isolated before I found a group of other single moms,” she said. “If we had the understanding and support in place, a lot more parents would be ready to pursue their educations and not feel like it’s unattainable.”

This story about student-parents was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast.

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When Carlos Sanchez immigrated to Grand Rapids, Michigan, from Mexico City 25 years ago, he’d already completed two years of college at Universidad Iberoamericana, and he was determined to finish his degree. Already bilingual, he felt comfortable tackling the second half of his education in English. But the language barrier was only part of the challenge. 

When he tried to enroll, he found that colleges had no idea how to handle his international transcripts and credentials. He recalls finding (and paying a considerable amount for) an outside company that could convert his transcripts into something more comparable to the U.S. education system. 

Eventually, Davenport University recognized the academic work he’d done in Mexico and he was able to finish his bachelor’s degree in international business there, without having to start from scratch. 

Sanchez is now the executive director of Casa Latina, a new bilingual college program at Davenport that will cater to students exactly like the one he was 25 years ago. He hopes it will help many highly trained or qualified people who are underemployed because they believe their English isn’t good enough to earn a college degree.

“I’ve been here 25 years and I’ve met engineers that are Uber drivers,” he said. “I’ve met accountants that have worked on a manufacturing line. Not that there’s anything wrong with those positions, but these individuals have four-plus years of college in their countries and they are underutilized.”

Beginning this fall, Casa Latina will offer 12 online undergraduate and graduate programs in an entirely bilingual and bicultural format. The curriculum will be offered entirely in Spanish one week and entirely in English the next, and all support services will be available in both languages.

Davenport’s tuition prices will apply to the Casa Latina programs, but accepted students will be awarded scholarships of $9,200 per year to help make the program more accessible financially. Those enrolled part time will receive a proportionate amount of scholarship funding, Sanchez said. Students are eligible for the scholarship award regardless of their immigration status, which Davenport does not ask about, he said. If students are eligible for federal financial aid, they can also use that funding to pay tuition.  

Once students are accepted, Sanchez said, Davenport will assess their education and work experience to see what can count toward degree progressions. The idea is to help students finish their education as efficiently and affordably as possible and get them into the workforce so they can provide better lives for their families. 

Latinos are the fastest growing demographic group in the United States, but data shows they are less likely than other racial and ethnic groups to have earned a college diploma. About 23 percent of Latino adults between the ages of 25 and 29 have a bachelor’s degree, compared to 45 percent of their white peers, according to a 2022 Pew Research Center report.

Davenport, like colleges across the country, has struggled with declining undergraduate enrollment since the pandemic. It has six campuses in Michigan along with its online program. In the 2018-2019 academic year, the university enrolled 6,763 undergraduate students, compared to 5,372 in the 2021-2022 academic year (the most recent year available from the National Center for Education Statistics). And colleges across the country are bracing for a shrinking number of graduating high schoolers after 2025 to have an effect on their enrollment. 

But Davenport’s president, Richard J. Pappas, said that the college has had good enrollment for the last three semesters, and the Casa Latina program is not just about boosting those numbers.

“It’s not a recruiting tool. Because if we don’t retain them and graduate them, this is a failure,” Pappas said. 

About 7 percent of Davenport’s undergraduate students identify as Hispanic or Latino, and 34 percent as nonwhite, according to data from the Department of Education. 

Deborah Santiago, president of the national advocacy group Excelencia in Education, said she’s excited about Casa Latina because it is advancing what it means to support not only Latino students but Latino communities more broadly. 

For these students to thrive in college and afterwards, Santiago said, the bilingual curriculum has to be connected to services that support students’ lives outside the classroom and resources that help them prepare for the workforce. 

“There is intentionality, there’s leadership here,” she said of the Davenport program. “They see the Latino community, they want to connect them to employment, they want to make sure that they get the academic rigor.”

Pappas said Davenport has worked with state and local Hispanic business leaders to make sure that Casa Latina is an opportunity for higher education and career development for “people who don’t feel comfortable, who may feel like they’re not capable because of the language barrier.”

Degree programs to be offered include accounting, business administration, education, human resource management, health services administration and technology project management.

Latino adults with work experience or some higher education in their home country are one of three demographic groups that Davenport expects to serve with this new program. Another is the college-aged children of those immigrants, who speak Spanish at home but are English dominant, and who have not yet harnessed their Spanish skills in academic or professional settings. 

Sanchez said they also expect to serve non-Latino students who attended immersion programs in high school, are bilingual and want to develop Spanish-language proficiency in their field of study and prepare to work as fully bilingual professionals. 

Regardless of their backgrounds, Pappas said he thinks that having a bilingual degree will help set these students apart in the workforce. 

“We still have some heavy lifting to make sure we do it well,” Pappas said. “But I think it’s going to have a big impact, not only on the people who go to our program, but the places that employ them.” 

This story about bilingual college was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.

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In 2023, Diamond Harriel was looking to make a career switch. She had a 10-month-old daughter and had recently gone back to school for a business administration degree, hoping it could help her earn higher pay than the temporary administrative jobs she had been working. 

One day, through a program that helps single moms, she saw a flier about a new city initiative in Rochester, Minnesota, that aimed to bring women of color into the construction workforce.  

After learning more, Harriel enrolled into a trades readiness training program that taught the ins and outs of construction, from how to read a blueprint, to operating different tools and basic safety. The program exposed her to the possibilities within the construction world: building inspections, project management, apprenticeships in skilled trades like plumbing and electricity.

The city initiative that guided Harriel through the training and helped set up the interview is called the Equity in the Built Environment program. It started in 2023 after Rochester Mayor Kim Norton won a $1 million grant from the Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Mayors Challenge. 

When the 2020 recession hit, one thing had become apparent to Norton: Women of color were bearing the brunt of it. In Rochester, they already held some of the lowest paid jobs, and as the pandemic took hold, those positions disappeared in sectors like the service industry, which disproportionately employs women of color. 

Related: The jobs where sexual harassment and discrimination never stopped

“Probably they struggled the most anyway,” Norton said. “But it was held up and in the sunlight during the pandemic in a way that it was so obvious you couldn’t ignore it.” 

What her office realized is that there wasn’t a shortage of employment opportunities.

Rochester, with a population around 220,000, was halfway into a $585 million, 20-year funding initiative to build new infrastructure downtown. It was also home to the prestigious Mayo Clinic, which had just announced a $5 billion economic growth project.  

All of that growth meant a lot of available construction jobs, which was facing a worker shortage. Could that problem be solved by diversifying the workforce? 

“Our research showed that very few women are in construction and almost no women of color. We said, ‘Well, here’s an opportunity,’” Norton said.  According to the city, women of color make up 13 percent of the city’s population but less than 1 percent work in the construction industry.

Over the past year the city has piloted Equity in the Built Environment to create a solution that could work for everyone — both the construction industry facing an employee shortage and the women they sought to help. If they are successful, they could be a model for other cities as construction projects boom across the country. 

The pilot project consists of tackling the workforce challenge in three ways, said project manager Julie Brock: educating women and girls about the employment possibilities; training and recruitment for women of color; and addressing long-standing issues with discrimination and harassment in the industry. 

First, program participants are set up with a career counselor with a local workforce development nonprofit, and then they enter either a trades readiness track, or an entrepreneurial track that helps women start their own construction businesses. Throughout that time they have access to wraparound services like child care and transportation to remove barriers to attending classes. For those looking for a job, the program works to place them at three different companies that are partners in the work. So far eight women have completed the program. 

Related: Women in construction have been marginalized. This bill would change that

Explaining to women that there could be a job in the field that fits their interests and skills has been a challenge, Brock said. At first, women assumed that the only jobs available would be more around tradework. Now, the pilot program has framed conversations around the built environment, more broadly, with other career opportunities in health and safety inspections, interior design and project management among others.

“The mindset shift is you are not asking people to go on a construction crew to swing hammers,” Brock said. “If somebody wants to do that, that’s great. But there is amazing wealth to be made in the built environment.”

Aaron Benike, vice president of operations at Benike Construction, one of the pilot’s partner companies, said that his company is doing whatever it can to attract a more diverse workforce. It’s what drew him to participating in this pilot. 

With the industry currently going through a wave of retirements of its primarily White male workforce — nationwide 1 in 5 construction workers is 55 or older — he realized they need to be more intentional about outreach. 

Out of over 200 employees, they have few women, and just one woman of color who currently works for the company. 

“It’s just a segment of the population that for one reason or another isn’t part of the team,” Benike said. “For one reason or another they haven’t felt welcome or we haven’t reached out, it’s probably both.”

The construction industry as a whole does have a reputation for discrimination and harassment. A report released by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last year found that women were often denied jobs or harassed and discriminated against on job sites in the construction industry. 

Benike, who had the opportunity to talk with women interested in construction when the program was being designed, said it opened his eyes to things he’d never really thought about. For the women, he said, “safety meant safety from harassment … and that was a blind spot to me,” he said. “I’ve been on job sites my whole life and never experienced anything like that, but why would I, right?” 

His company is currently undergoing training to obtain an Inclusive Workforce Employer Designation, a series of trainings focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, and a requirement to participate in the pilot. He hopes that job seekers will see that as a sign that his company is a safe space to work. The city’s pilot also has trained mentors at each company to work with women when they are hired to ensure a smooth transition into a new field. 

Benike wants to convince more women to consider getting into the field. “The pay is good. The training is good. It’s safe and the pension is good,” he said. 

In recent weeks the city has also launched public service announcements to bring more women into the pilot; now that it’s been running for over a year, organizers feel ready to scale up. 

For Sara Tekle, a participant who did the entrepreneurial track, the pilot has helped her start a business in craft labor, doing the demoing and cleaning up for construction projects.

Tekle, who is originally from Eritrea, was working in nursing at the Mayo Clinic for years. She had already been doing side jobs with construction after taking on some remodeling at her own house. 

But the program helped her build her website, start the process of getting her contractor license and register her business. She is now in a training that will help her place bids for construction work. She’s also been able to network with companies from the city’s pilot who could potentially contract with her company.

The Rochester City Council has adopted requirements that a certain number of women- and minority-owned businesses be involved in construction on city projects, which could help women like Tekle. 

The program made Tekle feel more comfortable working in construction and supported in making a transition to running a company full-time, which she hopes to do in May when bidding season starts for construction work. 

Tekle, who also works as a women’s advocate, said she’d like to encourage other women she knows to consider working in the built trades — eventually she hopes to be an employer. 

“The construction industry is not engaging or welcoming to women,” she said. “When I start my own company, the biggest vision is to hire a woman.” 

This story was produced by The 19th and reprinted with permission.

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Education and education access are directly connected to economic growth. Despite the dysfunction in Congress, especially over border issues and foreign aid, there are key education bills that can provide not only solutions for the issues they address but also models for getting things done across a range of other issues.

Two pieces of legislation that could improve our economic future by advancing education and workforce development passed the Committee on Education and the Workforce a few weeks ago with broad and bipartisan support, demonstrating that consensus is not only possible and practical but achievable.

The success of these bipartisan solutions could break down walls of division and better the lives of our nation’s students while bolstering our cities’ economies.

In mid-December, the committee approved the Bipartisan Workforce Pell Act, with support from both Republican Chairwoman Virginia Foxx and ranking Democratic member Bobby Scott, who co-sponsored the legislation.

The bill would expand Pell Grants to provide needed tuition assistance for short-term education and training directly linked to career opportunities, easing the costs of attaining the education and skills that all students, and especially low-income students, desperately need.

The bill would also fund access to online learning, further cutting costs and making education more flexible and accessible.  A vast array of students across red and blue states would benefit from the bill’s commonsense approach, as would our community colleges, employers and, by extension, all Americans.

Related: ‘August surprise’: That college scholarship you earned might not count

That same House Committee voted, a bit earlier, also with bipartisan support, to reauthorize the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. This legislation includes federal funding to support education and skills-based training directly connected to career opportunities and economic success.

This too will directly impact our nation’s community colleges, which are the key engines of economic mobility.

Under the bill, existing Labor Department funding could be repurposed to provide eligible workers with individual, customized education and training accounts, leading to improved career opportunities.

The bill would also specifically address the education and training needs of our incarcerated youth by providing them with the education and skills needed to ease their transition into a stable future. And it would add accountability provisions to ensure that spending for education will lead to concrete job growth. Like the Pell legislation, the bill has broad support among education and business leaders.

Passing short-term Pell along with passing workforce and education legislation would provide a clear pathway from high schools to colleges and careers, ensuring a brighter future for millions of students across the nation.

Both pieces of legislation could potentially pass the House and the Senate and be signed into law early in the New Year. 

Smart investments in Education can be both the answer to governmental gridlock and spur economic progress.

Of course, as is usually the case with legislation that clears committee hurdles, the bills contain small flaws that demand fixes. 

For example, in the Pell bill, one item that could derail passage in the full House and Senate and set back the nation’s commitment to social mobility for students is a provision calling for a reduction in student loan eligibility for students at some of the most selective colleges. Another flaw is that the legislation could open the door to abuse by predatory for-profit colleges. These parts of the plan can easily be fixed to ensure passage.

Passing short-term Pell and workforce and education legislation would provide a clear pathway from high schools to colleges and careers, ensuring a brighter future for millions of students across the nation. 

Related: OPINION: It’s time to put the brakes on student debt and give more students a shot at higher education

We’ve seen bipartisan support deliver dynamic education and economic growth before, most recently when Democrats and Republicans in both the House and the Senate united behind Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer’s CHIPS and Science Act.

That act mobilized efforts to restore American leadership in the semiconductor industry while creating good-paying jobs and reducing the cost of automobiles, refrigerators and computers.

The CHIPS and Science Act, with bipartisan support, also included a huge investment in education research, and became a model for the progress that can be achieved when parties come together to better the lives of the people.   

Now is the time for more bipartisan progress. Passage of these two critical education bills would be a fine start, fueling job creation and bettering the skills and future incomes of our nation’s students, who need our support now more than ever. And the bills’ passage would provide a model for how to eliminate gridlock and address our core economic challenges in a positive manner.

Most polling suggests that the top-of-mind topics for most Americans are the proverbial “kitchen table issues,” led by the economy and its effect on working-class Americans.

These bills address those issues. Americans with the education and skills to be employed in growing industries will earn higher wages, and the increased tax revenues from those wages will support our nation’s schools at all levels. And these bills’ prioritization of our community colleges will help them become an even stronger engine for jump-starting and sustaining America’s growth.

In recent years, it’s begun to seem that dysfunction is the one thing that Washington can be reliably counted on to provide. But let’s not simply accept that Congress can no longer come together to support initiatives that meet our needs and provide enhanced opportunities.

For many years, education issues have divided Americans; these core education bills can unite us. They deserve prompt action.

Stanley Litow served as deputy chancellor of schools for New York City and as president of the IBM Foundation. He now serves as adjunct professor at Columbia University and as trustee of the State University of New York where he chairs the Academic Affairs Committee.

This story about breaking political gridlock was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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To Florina Caprita, the mother of three young children, the paralegal studies program at Ashworth College seemed like the perfect route to a much-needed career. The classes were entirely online, and an admissions officer told her she could make small monthly payments toward the $4,465 tuition while she was taking classes, instead of having to pay it all at once.

But in 2018, a family emergency forced her out of school, just six credits shy of her degree. To make matters worse, she fell behind on her monthly payments, which had steadily increased from $25 to more than $200.

She struggled financially for several years as her health declined, but last spring, she got an opportunity to earn a degree at a different college. The problem? Ashworth, a for-profit school in Georgia, refused to release her transcript until she paid – in full – the more than $2,200 that she owed them.

This practice, known as transcript withholding, has become a growing worry for state and federal regulators. Critics say that it makes it harder for students to earn a degree or get a job, which would allow them to earn enough to pay back their debts. But the system of oversight is patchwork; no single federal agency bans it, state rules vary and there are significant challenges with monitoring the practice. That means students like Caprita can fall through the cracks.

In October, the Department of Education released new rules that would bar colleges from withholding a transcript for any semester for which a student used federal student aid money and paid their balance in full. The move was lauded by advocates as a huge step forward in eradicating the practice – but would not apply to any of the thousands of schools that don’t accept federal student aid to begin with, including Ashworth College.

Experts have long criticized authorities for not providing better oversight of these schools.

“Some of these schools exist that way because they would never qualify, and that’s usually because they provide very low value to students, unfortunately,” said Edward Conroy, a senior policy advisor at the progressive think tank New America. “Not in all cases, but a lot of these programs are not lifting people out of poverty, they’re not providing a route to middle class jobs or middle-class income, and so I think sometimes they’re of questionable value.”

Unlike the Department of Education, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does have jurisdiction over colleges that don’t qualify to receive federal money. And in the past year, the agency has begun investigating colleges for refusing to release transcripts because of a loan balance owed directly to the school.

“If they help me, I can help to pay them. If they withhold [the transcript] from me, then I how can I ever pay them?”

Florina Caprita, who has an outstanding loan from an online for-profit university

In 2022, the agency found that transcript withholding was an abusive practice under the Consumer Protection Act, “designed to gain leverage over borrowers and coerce them into making payments.”

The CFPB has adopted a broad definition of what a student loan is. They include in that category things like payment plans, arguing that those are essentially forms of credit. Money owed for things like unpaid room and board balances or overdue fines, however, is not covered. 

By their definition, Caprita should have been eligible to access her transcript. But she says she called and emailed the college repeatedly to no avail. She even asked to re-enroll in a new payment plan but college officials said their hands were tied and she would have to take up the matter with a collection agency.

“If they help me, I can help to pay them,” said Caprita, who is 44 years old and is hoping to join a Christian ministry. “If they withhold it from me, then I how can I ever pay them?”

Ashworth College did not respond to requests for comment.

A CFPB official acknowledged that it’s impossible to examine the policies of all of the thousands of colleges and universities across the country. The bureau has tried to make enough public statements for institutions to take note and change their policies without additional intervention, the official said. The agency has investigated some colleges for transcript withholding and made them change their practices but has not released any institution names publicly.

The education department’s rule on transcript withholding will go into effect in July 2024, joining other federal and state regulations meant to protect students from transcript withholding.

An education department spokesperson said that the agency plans to adjust its oversight procedures to ensure that schools that receive federal funding are following new regulations and that all student complaints alleging transcript withholding are investigated. Schools may eventually lose eligibility to receive federal student aid if they don’t comply with the new rule.

“It wouldn’t completely surprise me if one of the institutional reactions was, ‘We’re just going to stop doing this, period.’ ” 

Edward Conroy, senior policy advisor, New America

Despite the fact that the regulation only applies to students who have used federal money to pay for their education, advocates hope that colleges will respond in a broader way.

“It wouldn’t completely surprise me if one of the institutional reactions was, ‘We’re just going to stop doing this period,’ ” Conroy said. “The number of students who are paying completely out of pocket isn’t that big; you don’t want to have separate administrative systems.” 

Indeed, that’s what some policymakers have seen happen at the state level. Some states have only banned the practice at public institutions or for debts of up to a certain amount. In other cases, schools are only required to release transcripts for certain uses.

For instance, in 2022, Colorado passed a law prohibiting withholding transcripts from students requesting them for several reasons including needing to provide it to an employer, another college or the military. Carl Einhaus, a senior director at the Colorado Department of Education says that most institutions found it too burdensome to differentiate between which transcript requests were required by law to be honored and which weren’t and have opted to grant all requests.

“They’re not going to bother trying to figure out how to operationalize this very difficult thing to operationalize,” he said.

Starting next summer, the Colorado law also requires institutions to submit data about how many students requested transcripts and how many were withheld. Einhaus said that some schools initially resisted the new law, arguing that it would take away one of their main tools to recover money owed from students. “It will be interesting to see if this really is having an impact on the amount of debt they’re able to collect back,” he said.

But Brittany Pearce, a program manager at the higher ed consulting firm Ithaka S+R, is skeptical that withholding transcripts was ever an effective way to recoup debt. “From a really practical business sense, nobody is winning,” she said.

Correction: This story has been updated to remove the description of Ashworth as unaccredited. It is accredited by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission. 

This story about transcript withholding was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Check out our College Welcome Guide.

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When I became a mom, I thought my dream of teaching would have to remain just that: a dream.

Juggling single parenthood was a full-time job in and of itself. I didn’t have the support or resources to pursue the path to becoming a teacher, even though I thought I could be a great one and it was what I so desperately wanted to do.

Barriers to entering the profession are too high.

To become a teacher in California you have to study for, pay for and pass a slew of standardized tests. Then you have to earn your certification through an accredited program involving more tests, classes and student teaching. And then, if you’ve passed all your classes and tests and pay tens of thousands of dollars, maybe you can finally enter the classroom.

How does someone who is already a parent, and not wealthy, manage to do all that?

I am a better teacher because I am a parent, and a better parent because I am a teacher.

I’m fortunate that I found a program that broke down those barriers to entry. I’m now earning my teaching credential through a low-cost program that allows me to work full-time in a classroom; I will graduate debt-free.

With a national teacher shortage looming, it’s time to support students by creating more programs like mine and easier pathways into the classroom for parents.

Related: To fight teacher shortages, schools turn to custodians, bus drivers and aides

Here are some ideas about how we can make the teaching profession more attainable for parents:

1. Pay higher salaries. It’s no secret that being a parent comes with challenges — often financial ones. The average debt load for experienced educators is $56,500. We need to increase pay and make teaching a financially viable profession.
2. Prioritize flexibility in teacher prep programs. My teacher prep program is called TeachStart, and as one of their fellows I receive paid study days. This means that parents like me working toward credentials can study while our children are in school or daycare so we don’t have to give up precious time in the evenings or on weekends.
3. Personal support. TeachStart also provides me with a designated in-house mentor, so I have a point person for questions or concerns and to celebrate personal and professional wins with. TeachStart has also created scheduled times for me to lesson plan and collect my bearings at the beginning and end of each day.
4. Utilize skills parents bring to the table. Years of motherhood can translate directly into classroom skills. My son has made me a better listener. Parenthood is a two-way street: You grow with your child just as they grow with you. Teaching is no different. As a single parent, I bring empathy, understanding and dedication to the classroom. My experience as a mother has allowed me to connect with students and families on a deeper level, fostering a sense of trust and partnership. I appreciate the pivotal role parental involvement plays in a child’s education and actively work to bridge the gap between home and school lives. And I take pride in listening to and learning from my students. We can take these lessons and skills that parents have learned through their experience raising children and allow them to utilize them in the classroom. Our students will be better for it.

Related: OPINION: To solve teacher shortages, let’s open pathways for immigrants so they can become educators and role models

Furthermore, increasing the number of parents leading classrooms could be a key to reducing teacher turnover. Parents who have earned certification have already proven their strength and dedication, which will help them remain in the classroom and, in turn, help improve student achievement.

I want other parents like me to know that with the proper support, they too can pursue a career that fulfills them and makes them better parents along the way.

Being a parent has equipped me with a unique perspective and a deep understanding of the challenges that families of all backgrounds face. I am always learning.

When I ask my son at the end of the day what he learned in school, he knows to ask me the same. I am a better teacher because I am a parent, and a better parent because I am a teacher.

All aspiring educators deserve the same opportunities that brought me to the classroom. If legislators, teacher prep programs and school leaders can commit to breaking down barriers to entry for future teachers, we will all benefit.

Katie Dillard is a TeachStart fellow. She teaches middle school English at Samuel Jackman Middle School in Sacramento.

This story about teacher certification was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

The post PARENT VOICE: In a shortage, parents can be an untapped source of new teachers appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

For many rural students, higher education means waking up before the sun four days a week, then driving an hour through cornfields or pine forests to reach the only college for 100 miles.

It’s a far cry from the awkward parental drop-off, search for elusive twin XL sheets and Olivia Rodrigo wall poster most people associate with the back-to-college season.

For the more than 33 million people living in education deserts, college-going can be a drastically different experience. In addition to long commutes, homesickness and culture shock, many students arrive underprepared in key subjects like math and science.

Their new college calendar may not be conducive to seasonal demand for jobs harvesting, hunting or fighting wildfires. They often grapple with local or even familial skepticism about the value of higher education, especially in areas where the main industries have not historically required a college degree and where students who leave town for college prove unlikely to return.

For all of these reasons, despite high school graduation rates similar to those in suburbs and cities, rural college-going rates are much lower. For rural students, the calculation about going to and staying in college is very different. Montana is seeking to make that calculation a little more positive through a new program, Montana 10.

Consider Baker, Montana, population 1,800. For high schoolers there dreaming of a college education, the nearest option, Dawson Community College, is about 70 miles away.

The nearest four-year institution, Dickinson State University, is 100 miles away, across the border in North Dakota. Students seeking a traditional four-year college experience in their home state must travel more than 225 miles to Montana State University in Billings.

That’s why these students need a little extra help both adjusting to and staying in school, and why they need someone like Julie Pettitt-Booth, executive director of new student services at MSU Billings, who understands what they’re going through as they adjust to college and the big city for the first time.

Related: Rural students are the least likely to go to college

Coming from tight-knit communities, many rural students struggle with isolation and homesickness, as well as financial constraints. Such challenges are especially prevalent for students coming from low-income homes, for students who are the first in their families to attend college and for those who have especially long commutes to school.

Each challenge makes it easier to contemplate dropping out. That’s where Pettitt-Booth and college support staff across the state come in: providing one-on-one care to help students stay focused and clear those hurdles.

If a comprehensive student support program can work in Montana the way that it has worked in other places, the state could see more degrees and less debt, spurring economic stability for rural towns and the state as a whole.

The Montana University System’s new program called Montana 10 offers academic, social and financial supports designed to help low-income, rural and Native American students get acclimated to college, stay enrolled and reach graduation on time.

To do this, Montana 10 simultaneously offers a combination of student support services — advising, career planning, academic help in first-year math and English classes — and financial supports like textbook assistance and scholarships.

In exchange, students must enroll full-time, complete their federal financial aid paperwork and meet with program staff regularly to stay on track.

The goal is simple: graduate students.

At the heart of the program are advisers who understand what students need both logistically and emotionally and who recognize what it means (good and bad) for a student, a family and a community when students leave for college.

They also help students navigate unique financial aid situations, such as how to qualify when their family’s assets are all farm equipment or when their parents live off the grid.

These advisers know how to help students who want to leave their small towns behind as well as those who commute daily from the homesteads where they plan to spend their whole lives.

Related: STUDENT VOICE: Why rural students like me are ‘meant to be here’ in college

Building students’ sense of belonging, along with financial and academic supports, can help students stay in college semester after semester. Montana 10 follows a tradition of comprehensive approaches to student success that have been proven effective in rigorous research studies in improving students’ likelihood of staying in college and earning a credential.

There’s also a big payoff: According to Montana state officials, of Montana jobs paying more than $50,000 a year created between 2011 and 2021, 63 percent went to degree holders.

In eastern Montana, the most rural part of the state and home to towns like Baker, more than 60 percent of high-demand occupations have workforce shortages, especially in vital fields like education and healthcare.

If a comprehensive student support program can work in Montana the way that it has worked in other places, the state could see more degrees and less debt, spurring economic stability for rural towns and the state as a whole.

That means illuminating a winding path through the Rockies toward a postsecondary degree. A path that will lead to more teachers, nurses, engineers and tradesmen.

Rural colleges matter. When they’re the only option for a hundred miles, getting students in the door, and even more importantly, keeping them enrolled and helping them graduate, can have far-reaching benefits.

Alyssa Ratledge is a research associate at MDRC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that is conducting an evaluation of Montana 10.

This story about rural students and college was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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