Sponsors (3)
The bill increases visibility of student parents and strengthens data and evidence to inform targeted supports and equity reforms, but it creates reporting costs and privacy risks and does not itself fund services, so real improvements depend on institutions and policymakers acting on the findings.
Student parents and caregivers will be identified and tracked in federal education data so colleges, states, and policymakers can target enrollment, retention, and completion supports to them.
Policymakers and colleges will receive richer, disaggregated data (income, Pell receipt, employment, childcare use) plus federal technical assistance and expert input, improving the quality and usefulness of information for designing financial and support services for parenting students.
The Department will identify and publish best practices for supporting student parents (e.g., campus childcare models, program linkages), giving colleges evidence to expand campus-based childcare and other supports that can improve enrollment and persistence for low-income student parents.
Colleges and state systems will face new reporting requirements and implementation costs to collect parental-status and related data beginning in 2026–2027.
Collecting sensitive parental, income, and childcare-use information raises student privacy and data-protection risks if safeguards, communications, or de-identification are inadequate.
Small institutions or those with few parenting students may face disclosure risks and unreliable estimates when data are disaggregated by parent/caregiver status, race/ethnicity, or gender.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Requires federal education data systems to define and collect standard measures on students who are parents/caregivers and directs a study on effective institutional supports.
Introduced June 12, 2025 by Deborah K. Ross · Last progress June 12, 2025
Requires the Department of Education to define who counts as a "parenting student" and to add standard data elements to federal postsecondary surveys to measure parenting students’ enrollment, outcomes, finances, childcare use, dependents, and related characteristics. It also directs a representative study of institutional practices that help student parents succeed and requires a public report to Congress identifying effective strategies and best practices.