Thinking beyond childcare: Supporting community college student-parents

Student-parents compose a significant proportion of the student population at community colleges across the United States and Canada. The conflicting demands they face as they navigate academic, financial, and family responsibilities are considerable. Drawing on interviews with student-parents and administrators at two community colleges, we focus on the extent to which student-parents were able to access campus-based resources that would facilitate their persistence. Our analytical approach illuminates the organizational obstacles that student-parents contended with in light of campus environments that operate in a care-blind manner and the role that institutional agents played in helping a small group of participants navigate these obstacles.