OHE Awards $5.3M in 2024 Student Parent Support Initiative Grants

12/5/2024

 

St. Paul, Minn.— In an effort to ensure they have the supports they need to succeed, the Minnesota Office of Higher Education (OHE) in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) has awarded $5.3 million in Student Parent Support Initiative Grants to 13 organizations. The funds will be used to support the academic goals, health, and well-being of student parents.

“If we want to be the best state in the country for raising a child, then we need to invest in the success of our parents,” OHE Commissioner Dennis Olson said. “The grants will play a critical role in ensuring any current or expecting parent has the support they need to earn a credential, giving them the ability to better provide for their family and support the success of their child.”

Student parents face multiple barriers to college enrollment, persistence, and completion. These barriers include constraints with time and money, lack of child care resources and academic support, or may feel excluded from traditional campus support services.

Student Parent Support Initiative Grants aim to bridge the opportunity gap by increasing access to crucial resources and services, ensuring that children have a healthy start, and families have access to affordable and quality child care and early education; access to mental health supports; and stable housing. By helping stabilize their needs in college, this initiative sets the foundation for overall future success.

This effort not only supports the parent’s success, it also benefits the child. Parental education is linked to upward mobility in their children through increased lifetime earnings, improved reading and mathematics skills, improved health, increased college enrollment, persistence, and completion, in addition to decreased incarceration, teenage pregnancy, and poverty rates.

Grants are available to colleges, professional organizations, and community-based organizations. Grantees can use the funds for:

• Program development costs (including staff salaries),
• Costs related to the start-up of on-campus childcare,
• Evaluation and data collection, and
• Direct assistance to pregnant and parenting students including:
  • Scholarships,
  • Basic needs support, and
  • Expenses related to childcare.

Recipients of the 2024 Student Parent Support Initiative Grants are:

• Central Lakes College- $261,694.00
• College of St. Scholastica - $164,341.00
• Healthy Community Initiative- $147,370.16
• Herzing University, LTD - $723,910.00
• Jeremiah Program - $1,710,103.00
• Metropolitan State University - $416,827.41
• Minneapolis Community and Technical College - $916,930.00
• Minnesota State Community and Technical College - $195,085.00
• Minnesota State University, Mankato - $71,853.28
• North Hennepin Community College - $200,000.00
• Raise the Barr- $258,577.15
• Catherine University - $181,470.00
• University of Minnesota - Twin Cities - $61,250.00

The Student Parent Support Initiative was established by the Minnesota Legislature in 2023. For more information, visit the OHE website.