Many of these Americans, it turns out, are college students. Researchers at Gallup have found that 30 percent of enrolled students are parents or caregivers to adults. They also found that these students are far more likely than their classmates to consider dropping out. Nearly 60 percent of them said they had considered stopping their coursework in the past six months, compared with about one-third of students overall. With more students sandwiched between aging family members and their own children, colleges cannot serve today's students without designing for the dual caregivers among them.
I know that squeeze firsthand. I am a first-generation college graduate from East New York, Brooklyn. I dropped out in my first semester of community college and was academically dismissed from a nursing program in my 30s. But I kept trying, and this year, nearly three decades after I first enrolled in a community college, I finished my doctorate. I researched and wrote my dissertation while working full-time, raising my teenage son as a single mother, and caring for my uncle during the final chapter of his life. I also lost my grandmother during that time.
Grieving those losses while showing up each day for my family, my career, and my education challenged me in ways I never expected. Many students who find themselves in that position end up leaving school, and in the past, I would have too. But my university gave me time to recover and the encouragement to keep going, and I finished my program because of that flexibility. Many students are not given that kind of support.
Too often, college schedules are built around an assumption that students can attend class at a fixed hour, visit an office during the workday, and manage a family emergency without losing academic ground. A student who is raising children and caring for a parent simultaneously rarely has that kind of leeway. Colleges should treat flexibility as a key part of the academic experience. That means offering online and asynchronous options that allow students to complete coursework outside of fixed meeting times.
It also means reconsidering the traditional semester as the only way institutions can organize learning. At National University, where I earned my doctorate, students take one four-week course at a time and can begin a new term every month. Shorter, focused courses and more frequent start dates can make interruptions less costly. Likewise, if a student needs to pause their education, year-round enrollment can provide a clearer, faster route back into college.
That same flexibility can also apply to student support services. When a student works all day and then spends the early evening hours caring for family members, they may not realize they have a question about their schedule or financial aid until 10 at night. Tutoring, writing assistance, technical help, and course materials should be available outside normal business hours.
Individual success coaches and advisers can help students make sense of academic requirements, build realistic schedules, and identify their options when life intervenes. That support should be available via text, chat, and virtual appointments, so students don't have to find time to make another trip to campus or squeeze another call into a lunch break.
Colleges should apply the same thinking to students' emotional well-being. My grief did not patiently wait for me to finish my dissertation. A student’s academic progress and their personal well-being are not separate concerns. Among students who have thought about leaving their program, emotional stress and mental health rank as the two most cited reasons, even ahead of cost. Virtual counseling, wellness resources, and one-on-one support for students navigating a family crisis should be central to a college completion strategy.
Colleges cannot prevent a family member from becoming ill, and they can’t singlehandedly solve the nation's shortages of affordable child care and elder care. But they can decide whether those realities mean a student leaves school or stays on track to a degree.
