Video: Student Parent Success Stories from Winston-Salem State University

Lisa Matthews is more than a Winston-Salem State alum. She’s also employed by the university as a student success coach.

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Lisa Matthews with her sons on campus.

Family feeling at HBCUs a key to student success

When it comes to meeting the needs of student parents, the nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities have always been in the forefront—in part because they seek to create a supportive, family-type atmosphere. “Historically, we have had to be our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers,” explains one well-known expert on the history and culture of HBCUs. “It’s no coincidence. It’s not serendipitous. It’s because we care.”

Father and daughter study together in bed.

At this D.C.-area nonprofit, education crosses generations

College students in the Washington, D.C., area—and their children—are getting a boost from an innovative nonprofit organization that takes a two-pronged approach to education success. Generation Hope’s “two-generation model” provides direct services to the students themselves—including tuition assistance, academic advising, child care, peer mentoring, and parental counseling—while helping prepare their preschoolers for success in kindergarten.

Antavia Paredes-Beaulieu, a student at Metropolitan State University in Minnesota, crosses an elevated campus walkway that affords an expansive view of the St. Paul skyline. Paredes-Beaulieu, a single mother with a 10-year-old son, is Native American—a member of the Anishinaabe— but she grew up in Minneapolis, far from her tribal home, the Mille Lacs Reservation in east-central Minnesota.

Minnesota goes statewide to support student parents

College success isn’t just an individual goal, or even one that can be confined to the campus. To maximize progress—and to ensure that success is shared by all segments of the population—it’s an issue that must also be tackled at the state level. Officials in Minnesota have taken that lesson to heart. Through a variety of public-private partnerships, they’re working to build a holistic approach—not just to increase degree attainment, but also to improve health and employment outcomes.

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