More than 4 million college students in the United States have children, representing nearly one in five undergraduate students and over a quarter of graduate students. But despite this group’s large size, the absence of data about their characteristics, experiences, and outcomes at the student level renders them nearly invisible.
In 2021, Oregon and Illinois passed legislation requesting that colleges collect data on students’ parenting status. Other states and college systems have followed suit, either through legislative or administrative action. Currently, five states—California, Illinois, Minnesota, Oregon, and Texas—require student-parent data collection.
It is difficult to prioritize a population we cannot see. The slogan for the campaign for the Oregon student-parent data collection bill was, “When you are invisible, so are your problems.”
The Data-to-Action Campaign for Parenting Students aims to inform, guide, and steward the implementation of parenting status data collection. We are identifying standards of practice and strategies to overcome challenges as the process is field tested. These insights can inform data collection strategies across other colleges, college systems, and states, as well as in federal policymaking.
Why does student-parent data collection matter?
Collecting data on college students' parenting status at the student-record level can help student parents in multiple ways. Insights from data can help make the case for more child care, expanded family housing, or new instructional policies. Additionally, without these data, it is difficult to track student outcomes, such as retention and degree attainment rates. If colleges had better data and effectively used the new insights, they could tailor critical services and institutional policies to help student parents and single mother students succeed in their education goals. Colleges could justify additional attention to this group if they were made more visible through data.
Where did this effort come from?
This project is part of the Student-Parent Action through Research Knowledge (SPARK) Collaborative that grew from the Student-Parent Families at the Center project. We provide technical assistance to partners from colleges, college systems, states, and the federal government on student-parent data issues. We have convened two College Communities of Practice composed of institutions that have an annual request or mandate to collect student-parent data at the student-record level from any higher administrative level, including the state government or a college system.
In 2023, we launched the original Data-to-Action College Community of Practice, which included two universities, seven community colleges, and one citywide community college system in California, Illinois, and Oregon. Over the course of the grant, the colleges used cross-campus collaboration and data-informed student-success practices to implement parenting status data collection strategies.
Lessons from this cohort inform practices for other colleges, universities, and systems outside the community of practice, as well as state and federal policymakers, helping others count, understand, and support parenting students.
You can read more about the work of the original Data-to-Action College Community of Practice and view the Capstones here.
In 2025, we welcomed 13 additional college partners to the Data-to-Action Campaign as part of Data-to-Action for Parenting Students at Texas Colleges and Universities (D2A-TX). In the D2A-TX collaboration, Urban researchers are working with 6 universities and 7 community colleges and citywide systems. College and university partners are assessing their current resources for student parents, gathering student and community input on how to strengthen credential and degree pathways for parents, collecting improved data on parenting students, and establishing leadership hubs to support other Texas institutions.
More information about the communities of practice can be found under the College Community of Practice section of this page. Our work is informed by a policy scan that summarizes the state of student-parent data collection as of early 2023. Since then we have produced multiple resources on how to collect data on students' parenting status effectively while meaningfully engaging students in the process. See the Publications and Events section for insights and updates.
Contact us at [email protected].
The original Data-to Action Campaign was generously supported by ECMC Foundation, the Ford Family Foundation, and Lumina Foundation.
The Data-to-Action for Parenting Students at Texas Colleges and Universities is funded by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and Greater Texas Foundation.
We are grateful to them and other funders who make it possible for Urban to advance our mission.
