In 2003, I accomplished something that seemed unfeasible for students like me: I graduated from the College of William & Mary as a young mother. I’d navigated the many hurdles that student-parents encounter in higher education, including housing and food insecurity, the need for more hours in the day for schoolwork and to care for my daughter, and the shame and stigma I often felt from others on and off campus. Yet, one challenge followed me after I graduated: Even with a full-time job and a degree, finding affordable, quality child care for my 4-year-old made balancing parenting and my aspirations to provide a better life for my daughter extremely difficult.

Twenty years later, the lack of child care still keeps millions of parents from entering or remaining in the workforce — and the pandemic has only exacerbated this issue. A Census Bureau survey found that in just the first two weeks of February, nearly 5 million people missed work to care for children who were not in day care, and it is the reason cited by nearly 60% of parents who left the workforce during the COVID. In the last few years, over 16,000 child care facilities have closed, and many more still operate at a limited capacity. The crisis is especially acute in predominantly Black and Latino communities.

But an equally devastating consequence is that it makes enrolling in and finishing college nearly impossible for millions of parents. For mothers and fathers with low incomes, a postsecondary credential provides the most reliable pathway out of poverty. Yet for these parents, who are also disproportionately Black, Indigenous, and Latino, there is limited access to child care, both on and off campus.

Read the full article about affordable child care for student-parents by Nicole Lynn Lewis at The 74.