Giving Compass' Take:

· Although parents pursuing education or work training face financial difficulties, Lillian Mongeau reports that only 13 percent of these parents receive federally supported child care assistance. 

· How is this limiting financial growth for families? How is it hurting economic growth in America? 

· Here's how we can help adult students succeed.

If you live in Vermont or Tennessee and have young children, you might want to consider pursuing a new degree or additional training. Student parents in these states are just as likely to receive child care assistance as their peers who are working low-wage jobs and need help covering the cost of care. That’s not true in most states, according to a new report by the Urban Institute, a public policy research institute.

Nationally, just 13.2 percent of federal child care assistance dollars go to families who were either working and pursuing education or training (7 percent) or solely pursuing education or training (6 percent), according to the report.

Parents pursuing an education are “usually the lowest priority” both for child care assistance programs and for workforce development programs, said Gina Adams, a co-author of the report and senior fellow at the Urban Institute with a focus on early childhood issues.

The additional earning capacity that comes from having a post-secondary degree could make a big difference for a lot of families. Of the 13.7 million children living in poverty in 2016, 82 percent lived with parents who held a high school credential or less, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Research has shown that better educated parents have better educated children. But it’s difficult to both support a child and afford a return to school.

Read the full article about financial assistance for student parents by Lillian Mongeau at The Hechinger Report.