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Take any class at a community college, and chances are good that a student in that class is also raising a child at home. In California, there are approximately 300,000 undergraduate student parents, 66% of whom are enrolled in a California community college (CCC).
Raising Awareness—One Policy, One Resolution, at a Time
In 2021, Congress passed a resolution to designate September as National Student Parent Month. This action had a simple but overdue goal: include student parents in the picture when we talk about who college students are.
The following year, Governor Newsom signed AB 2881, authored by then-Assemblymember Marc Berman, into law in California. The law requires CCC, CSU, and UC campuses to offer eligible student parents (students with a child under 18 who receives more than half of their support from that student parent) priority course registration. This change aimed squarely at alleviating one of the hardest parts of the balancing act for student parents: getting into the class sessions that actually work around their children’s school pickup schedule and their own work schedule, instead of having to settle for whatever seats are available.
In spring 2026, the Student Senate for California Community Colleges passed Resolution 26.08.20, calling for something student parents have long said they need: dedicated Student Parent Engagement Centers to centralize referrals, information, and advocacy on campus, along with family-friendly study spaces where parents do not have to choose between bringing their child along and getting studying done.
From Awareness to Action
Awareness is only the first step. A fever, a school closure that collides with a final, or childcare falling through the week an assignment is due. This is the reality of being a student parent, but these challenges don’t show up on a transcript. They show up as exhaustion, as quietly dropping a class or two—not for lack of capacity, but lack of a system built with student parents in mind.
Recognition matters, but meaningful change requires structural solutions:
- Registration systems that don’t force a choice between a good class time and childcare schedules
- Campus spaces where student parents can bring their child to study and learn
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Data, such as the Chancellor’s Office’s SB39 - Students with Dependents, to count student parents so they are more visible in our system
Colleges Leading the Way
See which CCCs are actively supporting student parents and how.
College Spotlight: El Camino College
El Camino’s Parent Scholars Resource Center is a collaborative effort of the FamilyU team and the library to create a user-friendly space where students who are parents (called Parent Scholars) and their children can co-study, use a computer, or find information about resources available to them at El Camino.
Get Involved
To follow the progress of student-parent advocacy work in California, visit the California Alliance for Student Parent Success.