Child-care grants help single moms/students, but more help is needed

A grant helps Cassie Amundson pay for daughter Liliana's childcare while Cassie attends classes.

On their way to becoming graduates at the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities, Cris Bolas, 20, and Cassie Amundson, 23, also became single mothers.

Now, along with tuition, books, and other college materials, these women must pay for child care. This additional responsibility has made their educational paths that much harder. They’ve managed to stay in school, their struggles eased by state grants that pay for some of the child care that has added substantially to their education costs.

Bola's daughter Daisha was born last summer. For the second semester now, Bolas is getting a $1,100 state child-care grant. Amundson’s daughter Liliana was born two years ago. Amundson received $400 for each of the two semesters after her daughter’s birth.

These grants are available only to students in their first eight college semesters. Amundson has already run out of eligibility – she reached the limit after just those two semesters. Bolas, who started college three years ago and has two more years until graduating, could also find her aid cut off soon. As students who qualify as “independent” for the purposed of financial aid, these women are struggling to make ends meet as they juggle class, work and motherhood.

According to a new Lumina Foundation-funded study, independent students make up approximately two-thirds of part-time undergraduates and a quarter of full-time undergraduates. And many of these independent students come from low-income backgrounds. This study, titled Fixing the Formula: A New Approach to Determining Independent Students’ Ability to Pay for College, by Sandy Baum, examines the current method for determining financial aid and makes suggestions that might help independent students such as Bolas and Amundson.

Parenting can mean loss of grants and scholarships

A full-time student before Liliana’s birth, Amundson says she tried to keep going at that pace, but parental responsibilities forced her to drop back to part-time. By doing so, she also became ineligible for university grants and scholarships, which typically require full-time status. Now, between her class schedule and a 20- to 25-hour-a-week job as a peer counselor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies, she’s juggling 40 hours a week of work and class. So, even though she’s attending class part time, she’s paying full time for Liliana’s child care.

Amundson, who graduates in December, pays for Liliana’s day care entirely out of her own pocket. For now, the situation is working, Amundson says. But, she adds, “It’s been pretty hard when my day-care provider has to go on vacation.”

Although her two $400 child-care grants were relatively small and short-lived, Amundson is glad to have had them. “They just meant that I didn’t have to take out as many loans,” she says. She began taking out those only after she had Liliana, and they’ve added up to about $20,000 so far.

The child-care grants that made a marginal difference for Amundson have made, by her own account, all the difference for Bolas.

“If I didn’t have the child-care grants, I wouldn’t be able to afford day care,” she says. “And if I didn’t have day care, I would have to drop out.”

Before Daisha was born, Bolas was working weekends as a waitress. She was earning good money and making ends meet. But after motherhood, she had to quit her job. She has managed to remain a full-time student, though, in large part because of the educational benefits she gets as a member of the Minnesota National Guard, which she joined when she started college. Bolas says she got a lucky break in the day-care arrangement. She’s been able to keep going for two semesters with her two back-to-back child-care grants of $1,100. Her child-care provider has been reliable, but has said she’s not going to be available for Daisha beyond the current semester. So, along with writing term papers and studying for exams, Bolas is shopping for a new day-care situation for fall.

Parenting can make grades suffer

Both women describe their double lives as college students and single mothers as rough. It seems that there’s just not enough time in the day for their activities as moms and students. Their study time is limited to the dark hours after their daughters’ bedtimes.

“There are a lot of late nights doing homework,” Amundson says.

Bolas agrees, explaining that Daisha has grown into “a very active baby,” demanding more and more maternal attention. In the meantime, her classes are getting harder and harder, also requiring more of her attention. She says she’s exhausted. And, both women sheepishly admit that their grades aren’t as good as they were before their girls were born.

With the number of older undergraduate students rising and graduate study becoming more common, better distribution of funds to independent students becomes increasingly important, according to Lumina’s new report. Fixing the financial aid formula might ease the struggles of single moms like Amundson and Bolas – and other independent students wrestling with higher education costs.

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Child-care grants help single moms/students, but more help is needed

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