UA Students Can Access Grants for Child Care

La Monica Everett-Haynes
Feb. 11, 2013

Student parents have a unique set of challenges in completing their academic work – one of them being the need to coordinate safe and secure care for their children while they are studying. 

At the UA, the Graduate and Professional Student Council (GPSC) has been working to make sure that those undergraduate and graduate students receive some support along the way.

Nationally, about one-fourth of all college and university students are parents and, of those, 57 percent are low-income, according to a 2011 report released by the Institute for Women's Policy Research. The report also noted that about 12 percent of undergraduates in the U.S. are single parents with the vast majority of them being low-income.

Toward improving support for UA students parents, GPSC worked toward expanding the long-standing Child Care & Housing Subsidy Program for Students, which is supported by the University's Student Services Fee and facilitated through Life & Work Connections

The program, which offers variable funding amounts, also is supported by UA Student Affairs and the Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid.

"A lot of what we do here has a positive impact on graduate students," said Zachary S. Brooks, the GPSC president and a doctoral student in the Second Language Acquisition & Teaching (SLAT) program. "We decided to take the lead on the issue and, this year, advocate on behalf of the students."

Funding available for child care was expanded during the fall of 2012 after $26,000 in student fee money was set aside. Today, grants remains available to undergraduate and graduate students.

"Child care has always been a big financial factor and an overall scheduling factor for students," said Jill Krenecki Lloyd, program coordinator for GPSC in the UA Dean of Students Office.

For some student parents, it is purely financial – they cannot afford the cost of child care, especially at those facilities that are licensed, registered and monitored by the state, she said. For others, it is an issue of time and the need to negotiate between school, work and other responsibilities.

"We do support that all inclusive balance of one's professional, academic and personal life," she said, adding that GPSC will pursue additional funding," Lloyd said. "This is something we are committed to continuing every year, so long as we have the demand from our students."

Want to submit an application for aid?

And, are you a new parent or will you be soon?

Life & Work Connections is holding an information session Feb. 12, noon to 1 p.m. in the Presidio Room of the Student Union Memorial Center. Organized for students and employees, the session will cover child care resources and nutritional tips.

Contacts: Zachary S. Brooks, the UA Graduate and Professional Student Council president, at 520-626-7526; Jill Krenecki Lloyd, program coordinator for GPSC at  520-626-7526 or jkl2@email.arizona.edu

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