Single Mother Student Success Initiative

Addressing Single Mother Students' Needs

Historically, postsecondary institutions have not acknowledged single mother students, or student parents more broadly, as a population. They have not prioritized or addressed their unique needs, which are impacted by legacies of stigma and intersectional identities including race, gender and class. These students face challenges related to time poverty, access to affordable childcare, increased financial responsibility, isolation and discrimination that affect their educational attainment.

Nearly 10% of all U.S. undergraduate students, or 1.7 million students, are single mothers. Facing significant financial and time demands, just 11% of single mothers enrolled in an associate degree program complete their degree within six years of enrolling and 28% of single mothers have some college education, but no degree, making them more likely than all other women to have started but not finished a postsecondary degree.

While single mother students struggle more than their non-parent counterparts to complete college degrees, it’s not because they lack motivation or academic potential. It’s because our system of higher education wasn’t built with them in mind. Despite getting better grades than their non-parenting peers, single mother students face significant demands on their finances and their time that make college completion less than a defined finish line and more of a moving target.

A Vision for Generational Impact

By funding and supporting the work of grantee partners, ECMC Foundation strives to make strategic investments so that single mother students can realize their educational dreams, fostering a brighter and more equitable future for them and their children. In 2021, ECMC Foundation announced the Single Mother Student Success Initiative, a five-year, $10 million commitment.

Our goal aims to increase associate degree attainment rates for single mother students to 25% within six years of enrolling at a community college by December 2025.

Strategies for Action

ECMC Foundation began evaluating activities and outcomes in partnership with Education Northwest, which began in January 2021, as well as developed strategies to frame what the initiative plans to fund and achieve by December 2025.

Our road map to success includes four key strategies that we expect will lead to identified outcomes, and ultimately achieve progress toward the Foundation’s North Star: By 2040 equity gaps in postsecondary completion are eliminated, so that underserved learners have greater opportunity for social and economic mobility. These four strategies are:

1. Develop permanent data infrastructure and conduct research to identify and better understand the experiences of single mother students.
2. Build the capacity of community colleges with their partners to better serve single mother students.
3. Expand partnerships between community-based organizations and community colleges serving single mother students.
4. Build public will for single mother student success through increased awareness of supportive strategies and policies.

Read the Single Mother Student Success Initiative Theory of Action.

Opportunities for Funding

The initiative’s multiyear commitment will distribute grants and investments through a series of requests for proposals and the Foundation’s open letter of inquiry portal. Funding decisions incorporate the latest research from the field and findings from the initiative’s initial round of grants to focus on high-impact strategies so that single mother students can fulfill their educational goals.

Single Mother Student Success Initiative History

As the only national funder focused on single mother students, ECMC Foundation invested $6.5 million dollars from 2016 to 2020 that laid the groundwork for needed systemic change. Since 2021, ECMC Foundation has distributed more than $14 million in grants to 23 organizations and institutions working towards improving outcomes for single mother students and their families.

The Single Mother Student Success Initiative’s signature strategy is focused on supporting organizations, systems and institutions that serve single mother students, or student parents, as a population.  The Single Mother Student Success Initiative is currently providing grants to: Achieving the Dream; Ascend at the Aspen Institute; Association for Community College Trustees; Believe in Students; California Competes; Education Design Lab; Family Scholar House, Inc.; Generation Hope; Higher Learning Advocates; Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University; Interfaith Community Services; Jed Foundation; New America; New Moms, Inc.; Raise the Barr; The Urban Institute; and Virginia Foundation for Community College Education.

Learnings from the Field

In alignment with our Strategies for Action, hear from our grantee partners about how investing in single mother student success provides vital learnings and valuable returns.

Strategy #1: Develop data infrastructure and conduct research to identify and better understand the experiences of single mother students.

Strategy #2: Build capacity of community colleges with their partners to better serve single mother students.

Strategy #3: Expand partnerships between community-based organizations and community colleges serving single mother students.

Strategy #4: Build public will through increased awareness of supportive strategies and policies.