The College Fix

OPINION: Married and parenting students can model healthy relationships and good work habits to their younger peers

Married and parenting students can bring a benefit to universities – and higher ed institutions would be wise to embrace them.

While colleges may be rightly concerned with the drop in enrollment from the traditional group of 18-year-olds, fresh out of high school, they should consider reorienting to focus on bringing in older, married students. While there are certainly young married college students, here I am assuming most are older.

The Daily Princetonian recently highlighted the struggles of some married students to fit in on Princeton University’s campus. One questioned the need to attend a “Safer Sexpo” event, and when he showed up with his wife, he was excused from attending.

This sort of juvenile, stereotypically raunchy college event probably is not of much interest to married students with kids. Nor does having those events around really create a family-friendly environment.

Another problem at least one married student faced is trying to work on a group project at 9 p.m. – not exactly an ideal time for parents with little kids.

While it might be possible all those students had a packed schedule and that is the only time, in my experience college students often put things off until the end of the day. Others seem to find joy in working late at night as if it is a badge of honor (the proverbial “all-nighter” is just due to a lack of planning).

This is why married students can benefit campuses. When someone is married, and especially when they have kids, there is a built-in schedule to their day that a 19-year-old does not have. When the kids wake up at 6 a.m. and go to bed at 8 a.m., all other parts of the day are scheduled around those events.

These students can model for others how to manage their time and sort through their priorities. The 3 to 5 p.m. slot after classes but before dinner is no longer free time for playing video games or watching TV, but rather for studying.

The older population of students probably also have a better idea of what they want to get out of college, and are not merely attending as just the next step.

The Daily Princetonian profiled several students like this who were in the military, dropped out of high school, or worked low-wage jobs for several years, in addition to trying out community college.

At some point, a person figures out what they want to do with their life and is motivated to make it happen.

San Francisco State University is one such campus that is focusing on married and parenting students, as recently highlighted by The College Fix. The campus has about 700 parenting students and created a “Family Study Room” to accommodate them.

Married students can also model for other students how to have healthy relationships and serve as mentors for young couples. They would be a positive addition to the university at large as well as individual students.

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IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Three college students walk through campus; George Pak/Pexels

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