Today, American students hold a debt of more than $1.5 trillion and this figure keeps on rising every year. The costs of higher education are very high and its value is depreciating in the millennials’ mindset. However, every year, statistics have reported one thing-people with higher education generally earn better than the others. As a result, people indulging in higher education are more than ever, but so are the dropout rates.
Dropping out of higher education leaves the students with debts without any degree. According to other data, 40% of the students studying at a university or college dropout without their degree. This can happen due to multiple reasons. One particular reason is that 22% of college students (4 million) have a dependent child. And 53% of these, more than 2 million drops out without any degree.
So, one way to tackle the excessive dropout rates would be to concentrate on this particular section. Parenting, especially in the case of a newborn is never easy, to say the least. But there are some higher education institutes are now devising programs to help their student-parents.
Colleges tackling dropout issues
For example, Endicott College in Massachusetts provides such students aged between 18 to 24 childcare, free meals for their children and post-school support. A similar program was started by Monroe community college in Rochester, New York, which proved to be a huge success. Students taking advantage of this program are more likely to graduate than the other student-parents who weren’t a part of this program.
If we talk about childcare, it has always been a challenge, irrespective of the child’s age. Childcare expenses have continuously increased since 1985, a surge of 85%. On the other hand, wages have been relatively stagnant since then. Obviously, the task becomes more difficult when it comes to single mothers, who have to work more than 10 hours a day, then devote their time to studies and their children.
The Education Department started a program called Child Care Access Means Parents in Schools (CCAMPIS) which helps the students, coming from poorer backgrounds, with their childcare. In some colleges, the results have been very positive but it is not implemented countrywide. So a proper childcare program can be said as a decent way to start tackling the dropout problems.
Featured image from Pixabay
