When Nicole Lynn Lewis graduated from William & Mary, she crossed the stage with her 5-year-old daughter.
Seven years later, she founded Generation Hope, an organization dedicated to helping parents get to college and beyond, inspired by her experiences as a parent and young student.
In his latest book, The Student Parent: Struggling for Families, the Cost of Poverty, and the Power of College (Beacon Press, 2026), Lewis looks at the obstacles facing students with children, from rising child care costs to food insecurity and limited public transportation to campuses. He also includes personal and student stories and concrete recommendations for how college leaders and policymakers can improve parental access to and completion of college.
Within Higher Ed spoke to Lewis about his approach to understanding and mitigating the challenges facing student parents. The discussion is edited for length and clarity.
Question: In your first chapter, you explain how workforce development and employment are often identified as a solution for struggling low-income parents, but higher education is often overlooked as an option for them. Where did you see that moving game? And why do you think that is?
A: I think it plays out in a lot of areas, whether it’s philanthropy—where you have funders who want to focus only on workforce development as a solution to poverty—or you have community groups that are focused on getting people jobs, instead of actually finding ways to go to college and higher education.
[It’s] It’s just a general feeling about what is possible for people living in poverty, what their potential is. Rather than this [viewing them as] since they are fully capable of earning a high school leaving certificate, the focus is on getting them into jobs that may not even allow them to put food on the table and not really have opportunities for promotion. So, it comes from a sense of really restricting people who are walking around in scarcity and this belief that people with higher resources know better how to help these people thrive than the actual people who live this every day.Q: You also emphasize in the book that race should be an important part of the conversation about parenting students. He also realizes that racist practices in high places are currently under fire. What was it like when you talk about race and how you play in the things of students who are parents in this current political situation?
A: Well, there is no doubt that we are in an age and a moment in this country that makes it difficult to name race as a major factor in whether or not people can achieve the American dream. That’s for sure. But when I sat down to write this book, I really wanted to give people real solutions and I wanted people to have a real understanding of the challenges and obstacles of student parents when it comes to getting a college degree. And to do that, I have to talk about race.
There is no way to really analyze the challenges of child care, illiteracy, lack of housing, lack of food, without naming that race, racism and systemic oppression have created how people can’t access these things or not in this country. So, it’s a challenge, but the only way we can get to real solutions and real action is honestly about how we got here and what we need to do going forward.
I think there are some very obvious things, like the Supreme Court decision that prevented decision-making based on race [in admissions] and he really undermined affirmative action efforts. The students’ parents are likely to be students of color, so a decision like that will obviously have an impact on the students’ parents.
But there are things that people may not associate with the experiences of parents who study, such as students of color who grow up in communities that have been squeezed for resources. Therefore, you cannot have high quality schools in predominantly Black and brown communities. If you are a Black mother, you are less likely to receive appropriate health care and attention during pregnancy, and that has a significant impact on your child and their later education. And so it’s even before birth that we see this disparity, and that disparity has real consequences for you, as a student, and certainly as a parent of a student, you’re going to be able to have the preparation, the resources, the support you need to do to get to the graduation stage.
Question: In addition to race, you talk about gender. He says that when we talk about students who are parents, we don’t always think about fathers, who are an important part of the picture. How do you think gender plays into the resources needed by student parents?
A: I wanted to explore all the different angles of gender as it relates to the student’s parental experience. So, I’m talking about the fact that most of the parents who are students are mothers, and single mothers, and that single mothers in this country are equally burdened with poverty and all the challenges that come with that. I’m talking about the pay equity gap and the many things that make it so hard for moms to be able to put food on the table every day, never mind pursue higher education.
And then at the same time, I wanted to talk about the erasure of fathers and fathers of students. In our larger society, fathers have really been left out of conversations about caregiving and caregivers in this country, and that has been forced on mothers to take care of the shoulder. And the damage it does to fathers is that it diminishes the important role they play. [At Generation Hope]we will make sure that fathers who study are respected, named, and put forward. Your plans for student moms may look different than they do for student dads.
We did a haircut campaign, for example, where we had children’s books that we put in barbershops with a QR code on the back so that when you scan the QR code, you can learn more about Generation Hope and the foundations we provide to go to college. The idea is, let’s go where there are fathers, and fathers go into barbershops, they will cut their hair, and they will cut their children’s hair. To be able to have resources right there in their community that provide more information about college as an option that works for them, that’s a strategy in terms of employment.
But we also see some college colleagues doing things like Super Bowl watch parties for student dads, trying to engage them in ways they want to be promised. And I think the most important thing in student parenting across the board is to actually have parents who are students themselves helping to guide the program. We strongly believe in the impact of having student parents at the table and designing support and programs.
Q: In the book, you say that “focusing on shame” is central to your work with colleges to help them better support student parents. Can you tell me more about that?
A: The number of young parents and the number of student parents and the number of single mothers and single fathers – and even if we think, more broadly, the people who go to university and earn less in this country – they are made to feel ashamed. They are made to feel like they are not worthy or deserving of college degrees, economic mobility, opportunities, successful careers… The list goes on and on.
In order to truly reach them and provide them with help, we must create non-judgmental environments. We have to create spaces that really fight against the shame they face in the world. We intentionally built that space at Generation Hope—which was very important to us—and now we’re working with our college partners to help them create campus spaces that are about welcoming students who are parents, celebrating family, inclusion and making sure that student parents really feel seen and that they feel like parents. And that flies in the face—if we think about what has traditionally been celebrated and prioritized in higher education. But we know that if you can create those campus environments, that’s when parents of kids really succeed.
Q: What can colleges and policymakers do to create those campus spaces and respond to the many struggles of student parents described in your book, including poverty, food and housing insecurity, child care costs, and transportation? What role can institutions and policy play in alleviating some of those challenges?
A: These are big challenges and big issues. Not only do they deal with college campuses and student parents; they are facing millions of people across the country. We always tell colleges, you are not expected to solve all the problems and challenges, but what we want you to be is a place where parents of students feel like they can succeed and where they can succeed and where they can be seen.
That could be things like making sure you collect data about the parenting status of your students. Many colleges and universities across the country do not. And that is a good starting point to begin to understand who your student parent is. When you learn that, say, 15 to 20 percent of your students are parents and most of their childcare needs happen after hours, and there’s a need for drop-off care so they can go to class, that helps you think about what kind of solution you might come up with on campus. Can you create a childcare room on campus? Can you partner with a YMCA or community group to provide services? So, it really starts with college data, and that can help determine what unique needs your student parents have, how you can put some support as an institution to meet those needs and how you can engage with the community to do that.
And then for policy makers, what I’m really trying to drive home in the book is the importance of thinking about college as a solution to the poverty of moms and dads. The main focus is on workers, but we really want policy makers to think about, how can we create policies that pave the way to college for moms and dads and make sure that’s part of the conversation. Something like universal child care—policymakers are thinking about that, not just as it relates to keeping parents employed but keeping parents enrolled in school. That’s not happening on a large scale, and we want policymakers to really start bringing that into the conversation and making this a priority.
