Parenting Students Already Overcome the Odds to Succeed in College, The Republican Budget Bill Is Going to Make it Harder

Last month, the Trump administration and congressional Republicans forced through an enormous reconciliation budget bill. Despite being deeply unpopular with the American public, the legislation cuts taxes for the exceptionally wealthy—paid for by slashing spending on higher education and essential public benefit programs that primarily help poor Americans.

The changes to federal higher education funding and vital public benefit programs, like SNAP and Medicaid, will be felt by all students, but likely most acutely by the 3 million undergraduate college students with children. Parenting students sit at the center of a vast array of policy areas, trying to piece together enough support to survive from work, financial aid, and various public benefit programs, all so they can complete a degree or credential in the hope that they– and their children– can find some economic security and never have to rely on public support again.

Federal cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid will force states to make difficult choices about raising revenue and cutting spending. The increased costs that states will face as a result of the bill will likely jeopardize college affordability, according to analysis from The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS). Cuts to state higher education spending could result in colleges raising tuition, which is what happened in the wake of the Great Recession when states cut funds to colleges and universities. For parenting students, who already face non-tuition expenses two to five times higher than their peers, higher tuition could mean borrowing more, or putting college financially out of reach altogether.

Federal data shows that 28.7 percent of parenting students experience low or very low food security, meaning they have reduced access to quality and variety of food, or reduced food intake. Cuts to SNAP and Medicaid put parenting students at risk of worsened basic needs insecurity. The 30 percent of parenting undergraduates who participate in SNAP—along with their children–—will face lower benefit amounts to help them afford food. All SNAP enrollees will face a loss of at least some benefits under the bill, and 3.3 million families with children stand to lose at least $25 per month, at an average of $70 per month across all states, according to an Urban Institute analysis of the forthcoming changes to SNAP.

College students already face difficulties accessing SNAP, even when they’re eligible, according to the Government Accountability Office. This is partially due to the student-specific requirements they must meet, on top of income requirements. The bill will expand work requirements for SNAP to those with children ages 14 and older, while currently work requirements don’t apply to parents with children under 18.

Parenting students who are enrolled in college at least half-time are exempt from SNAP work requirements, and 74 percent already work full- or part-time, which may somewhat protect their access to SNAP. But changes to work requirements could cause confusion for parenting students or those trying to help them understand if they may be eligible. Work requirements are known to cause a decrease in SNAP participation, without meaningfully increasing employment. Parenting students who work or are exempt from work requirements are likely to have trouble with documentation barriers in the SNAP application or recertification processes.

An estimated 29.5 percent of parenting students with children under 18 are enrolled in Medicaid*, and some may face loss of coverage through the implementation of new work requirements, particularly due to burdensome application and recertification processes. Beginning January 2027, individuals enrolled in Medicaid expansion will be required to report on work or community engagement requirements of 80 hours per month. They will need to recertify eligibility for Medicaid every six months, instead of annually as is currently required, creating additional administrative hurdles to stay covered.

Enrollment at least half-time in an education program meets Medicaid work requirements under the new law, but what constitutes enrollment or an eligible education program isn’t defined. Again, most parenting students already work, but prior attempts to implement work requirements for Medicaid in Arkansas and Georgia have resulted in loss of coverage, even for those who meet exemptions or work rules, in large part due to administrative burdens and confusion about requirements. Researchers found that when Arkansas implemented Medicaid work requirements, enrollment in the program decreased by 12 percentage points, despite 95 percent of the population appearing to meet the requirement or qualify for an exemption. The state saw no significant gains in employment as a result of the policy.

In Georgia, the only state with a current Medicaid work requirement, costly administrative burdens have plagued the program, and the state fell far short of its goal to enroll more than 25,000 people in its first year. The state also reported to the federal government that it couldn’t determine if applicants met the qualifying work activities.

Under the reconciliation bill, states will be required to exempt certain populations participating in Medicaid expansion from work reporting requirements, including those with dependent children aged 13 and under. This may protect coverage for parenting students with younger children to a degree, but only to the extent that parenting students can navigate administrative burdens and states can provide a smooth and simple process for applications and recertifications. Parenting students with children aged 14 and older may face a loss of coverage if they can’t work enough while in school or are unable to document participation in work or other eligible activities.

In short, increased administrative burdens and changed work requirements for SNAP and Medicaid are likely to cause confusion, administrative difficulties, and ultimately lead to loss of food benefits and health coverage even for parenting students who are eligible for the program.

Parenting students, on average, borrow more in student loans than their non-parenting peers, with median debt two-and-a-half times higher than students without children, according to analysis from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Parenting students also face higher overall college-related costs, including expenses for child care and housing. Unfortunately, this bill will make repayment harder for parenting students. The law introduces changes to student loan repayment that roll back recent progress in making college more accessible for students with children. Student parents are already more likely to default on their student loans and less likely to have paid them off than their peers without children, even years after leaving school, according to research from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

Beginning in 2026, the law eliminates all existing income-driven (IDR) repayment plans, including SAVE, PAYE, and ICR, for new borrowers. These are replaced with a single plan called the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP). RAP is a move in the wrong direction, especially for parenting students. Analysis from New America raised early concerns about the shift to a single, less generous repayment plan, noting that it could strip away borrower protections, including $0 monthly payments for the lowest-income borrowers and limited flexibility in navigating repayment. Many of those concerns are reflected in the final law.

Compared to prior repayment plans, RAP is much less family-friendly, offering weaker relief to borrowers who are supporting children, according to analysis from the Postsecondary Education & Economics Research (PEER) Center. RAP includes a mandatory minimum monthly payment of $10, eliminating zero-payment status, and its $600 annual reduction per dependent is not indexed to inflation, so the value of the deduction will erode over time. Repayment can stretch for as long as thirty years before the remaining balance is forgiven, much longer than the 20- to 25-year forgiveness schedules under previous IDR plans. That means many parenting students could spend most of their working lives repaying loans or watching interest accumulate.

The creation of Short-Term Pell in this bill will likely lead to a proliferation of very-short-term programs, most of which have unproven value. Currently, the Pell Grant can be used for programs that are 15 weeks or longer. The new law will allow Pell to be used for programs as short as eight weeks, and for the first time in the history of federal student aid, non-credit programs are eligible.

Quick job training is appealing, particularly given the fact that Pell Grants are for low- and moderate-income students who would benefit the most if quick credentials provided positive outcomes. Shorter credentials may be especially attractive to parenting students, given the demands on their time, the hope of quickly entering the labor force, and receiving an earnings boost in as few as eight weeks, rather than two or four years.

Federal data shows that parenting students rely on Pell to afford postsecondary education and training much more than other students. According to recent data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), 57 percent of parenting students received Pell, compared to 37 percent of their non-parenting peers. But Pell is a limited resource, with a maximum of six years years of full time equivalent eligibility, so it is really important that students see a benefit when they use up semesters of eligibility.

Very short programs might have a positive impact on economic mobility for low-income students. However, the details matter. Existing evidence suggests that the benefits of very-short job training programs rarely outweigh their costs. In fact, New America's research shows that students who completed very short-term programs earned no more than their peers who didn’t pursue any postsecondary education.

Exacerbating the risk of poor outcomes is the fact that many of these programs are run by for-profit institutions, which have a long history of fraud and abuse, particularly in short-term job training programs. There is also a well-documented record of for-profit colleges predatorily recruiting Black and brown students, students who also represent a large share of the parenting student population. Research from the SPARK Collaborative shows that one in five parenting students attend a for-profit institution across all degree credential levels, which is overwhelmingly higher than the 1 in 20 nonparenting students enrolled in for-profit institutions.

Proponents of extending Pell Grant eligibility to very-short programs often claim that short-term credentials allow students to stack into longer-term degrees, providing students the potential of lifelong learning with flexibility to move between higher education and the workforce. However, New America’s research shows that most short-term programs do not offer a reliable pathway to an associate or bachelors degree. Without intentional and thoughtful program design and proper accountability, students who desire to continue their education could spend time on a program that does not provide an immediate earnings boost, or stack into a higher level credential. This puts parenting students at risk of winding up worse off after enrolling in a very short term program, having lost time with their children and wages. Ultimately, this could discourage them from pursuing a higher-level credential that could provide a stronger economic return.

Unfortunately, these risks are substantial, and the short-term Pell law lacks strong guardrails to sufficiently protect against these risks. Parenting students invest in a higher education with the goal of securing higher-paying jobs to provide economic security for their families—not to end up earning the same or less than before they went to college, that’s true no matter if they earn a 4-year degree or an 8-week certificate. Without strong guardrails that keep bad actors from preying on vulnerable student populations, this expansion of the Pell Grant program runs the risk of deepening the disparities in postsecondary education attainment for parenting students.

Many of the changes in this bill will make it harder, more expensive, riskier for all students to go to college. Parenting students, who already face a web of barriers to their success in higher education, are especially vulnerable to the combination of cuts to the social safety net, less generous student loan repayment options, and a potential flood of predatory short-term programs.

Parenting students, and perhaps most importantly, their children, deserve better.

*Data from 2023 American Community Survey, courtesy of Renee Ryberg and Christina Padilla of Child Trends. In early 2023, states began a lengthy process of disenrolling individuals from Medicaid who were no longer eligible or did not complete the renewal process, after a policy of continuous enrollment due to the covid-19 public health emergency. Therefore this estimate of parenting students enrolled in Medicaid may be higher than pre-pandemic or after the policy of continuous enrollment.