Student Parents and Their Mental Health

“I just don’t sleep,” Sarah* replied when asked how she manages caring for her son [and] balancing a hectic work schedule, all while attending community college. I put my son to bed…[and] then I stay up until I can get my homework done, and then I get a couple of hours of sleep before I have to get up and go back to school. So, I actually have been running on, like, four to five—if I'm lucky—hours of sleep during school.”

Sarah was one of 11 student mothers that New America interviewed for its child care work in 2023. Their stories revealed frequent struggles with exhaustion, lack of sleep, and stress, which can all severely impact mental health, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says includes “emotional, psychological, and social well-being.” Stories of exhaustion and burnout are not uncommon among the nearly four million student parents attending higher education institutions. The CDC’s website points out that mental health challenges can impact the way we respond to conflict, stress, and the ability to make healthy choices.

The research on student parent mental health isn't as extensive, making it hard to assess the full scope that mental health challenges play in student parent success. What we do know is that student parents are highly motivated, with GPAs higher than their nonparent peers. Yet student parents frequently experience strain on their time, which can worsen their mental health challenges. This is identified as “time poverty,” which affects both academic performance and overall well-being. Time poverty can severely limit the ability of student parents to support their families and the quality time they can spend on their education. A lack of focus on this issue and advocacy for the mental health of student parents can leave them feeling alone on campus, as if their difficulties are invisible to professors, college administrators, and policymakers.

Many of the student parents we interviewed shared that, at times, they felt “overwhelmed,” “anxious,” and even guilty about the constant balancing act of caring for their children and focusing on their studies. One student parent said, “you're trying really hard to not miss out on your child's life, and to be there for them and with them, and be present, but your mind is always on school or work, or on what you need to get done every single day and trying to keep up on household stuff like the dishes and laundry.” Even though participants did not explicitly mention mental health—loneliness, grief, trauma, and basic needs insecurity, among other factors, naturally impact well-being.

What We Know about Mental Health and Student Parents

We looked at work from the JED Foundation and Ascend at the Aspen Institute on the mental health of student parents. Overwhelmingly, student parents have increased risk factors for mental health issues that are often overlooked by their colleges and universities. In their nationally representative 2021 survey of 1,022 students, the two organizations said that 40 percent of their student parent respondents described attending college while caring for children as “extremely challenging.” Nearly 45 percent said they felt overwhelmed often or all the time. Some 37 percent experienced multiple anxiety attacks, and 38 percent said they had recently considered dropping out of school.

A separate study, from the Journal of American College Health, on single student parents attending community colleges in California found that a larger percentage of single-student parents considered suicide than other community college students, with the student parent group reporting “twice as many suicide attempts as their counterparts.”

In the interviews we conducted, we could see that these risk factors appeared to increase for immigrant student parents and the students who were parenting children with disabilities. Multiple interviewees who were immigrants spoke about the loneliness they experienced while they navigated a new space and language with little support.

For the parents of children with disabilities, the pressure of trying to find adequate resources for their dependents at an affordable cost and in a timely manner, while balancing their school and work responsibilities, is a stressor that can impact mental health. One student mother described some of the challenges of balancing the intricate needs of her son, which included seeing multiple specialists, while seeking out quality child care. “Another big challenge…was getting into a daycare that was able to support [his] needs,” Gina said. “I had to take him out of centers because I didn't feel like he was receiving the support that he [needed,] or the support wasn't given.”

The stress of juggling these responsibilities often forces student parents to delay their academic goals, which makes it difficult to complete the credential that could improve their economic outcomes.

Ways to Support Student Parent Mental Health

The experiences that student parents shared in interviews with New America emphasize a need to better support student parent mental health. September is National Student Parent Month and as students start or return to school, there are ways that institutions and policymakers can support student parents' mental health. Some of these solutions are direct mental health supports, while others focus on removing some of the burdens that contribute to student parent's mental health challenges.

What institutions can do:

• Ensure that on-campus mental health counselors understand the experiences and concerns of student parents.
• Identify institutional agents who can connect with and support student parents with applications for federal support like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
• Examine and change inflexible academic and institutional policies, which should include priority scheduling for student parents.

What policymakers can do:

• Student parents will always put their children’s needs first, and the mental burden of uncertain childcare can take time and focus away from school. That is why it is vital that lawmakers support the reauthorization and expansion of the Child Care Access Means Parents in School Program (CCAMPIS) grants—which offers low-cost child care to low-income families. Legislation to do just that was recently introduced by Senator Duckworth, and Representative Clark. Their bill would also increase funding for the program to $500 million per year, to increase the number of schools that can offer childcare on campus.
• Support legislation to improve data collection on student parents so that colleges can better tailor programs and services to meet their needs, including mental health supports. The Understanding Student Parent Outcomes Act offers a good starting point for improved data collection.

Supporting student parents has a critical impact that has positive consequences beyond the individual benefits tied to college graduation. As more institutions and policymakers address the mental health of student parents, they will also support the next generation of students in a powerful and meaningful way.

*We have used pseudonyms for participants to preserve their anonomity.