Getting a Higher Education with Young Children - Final - TDMaddox

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GETTING A HIGHER EDUCATION WITH YOUNG CHILDREN

Graduation rates have been one of the most discussed issues regarding college students. Government, research groups, and even parents have had different opinions regarding the rate of graduation which is comparatively low. Despite having different opinions, the majority of drop-out cases have been related to abuse of the drug by students taking degrees at higher education. Therefore, government and agencies have always joined hands to curb the rate of drug abuse among college students. (Costa).Although declaring war on substance abuse in higher learning environments is one of the ideal solutions to the problem of low graduation rate, the government, and advocacy group should dig deep and find out the main core of the problem leading to a low graduation rate. My argument, therefore, is that government and institutions should consider the case of single parents who form a great portion of the students in today's higher learning institutions who are faced with difficulties of having to balance between being a mother to a young one and being a student.

In brief, balancing between parenting and taking the role of a student can be devastating. First, as a single parent, you need to hire a helper to help you with your kid while you are away from school. this, therefore, means that you will require a part-time job that can help you raise some money to cater to your child’s needs as well as your educational needs. Secondly, single parenting is more demanding and can lead to the accumulation of debts and loans which will eventually lead to no graduation. The third challenge for student parents is stress. They are often stressed especially because they are torn between two responsibilities and failure to perform which leads to stress. Another challenge that they face is drug addiction which is an extra load to them. Most often such student-parent finds themselves in drug addiction in pursuit of relief from their enduring responsibilities. Last and most importantly, parent students face the challenge of a lack of support from both parents and the institution.

The main problem, therefore, is that student parents who also form a greater percentage of the college population find it difficult to complete their degree. Despite the high number of student parents in our institutions, these people do not get any sort of help from the institutions or even the government. (Garrett, and Robertson). Surprisingly, the low rate of degree completion is blamed fully on drugs and yet the causes of the problem are not fully analyzed. Therefore, they still talk about drugs and provide solutions to drug users such as rehabilitation centers whereas the most genuinely affected groups are single parents who lack financial support to perfectly complete their education and also take care of their children.

Therefore, I would propose that institutions and any relevant advocacy groups assist parent students. Empirically, single student mothers are the largest and still the fastest-growing student demographic in higher education levels. This, therefore, means that they should get adequate help from institutions to help them complete their education. The institutions should therefore reconstruct the available college policies towards assisting single student mothers in their pursuit of a college degree.

Secondly, instead of putting more pressure on drugs users, institutions should support single student mothers since they can act as role models to others. Single student mothers have an upper hand in encouraging young people that they can complete their college education without being dependent on government support. Arguably, if the number of single student mothers who complete their college studies and graduate rises then this will set standards for any students facing difficulties at college that there are hope and possibilities of getting their degree. Factually, the majority of drug users in school get involved in drugs due to certain problems and all they need is hope and encouragement. Therefore, helping single parents to set a role model will also help to reduce drug abuse in school to some extent.

Thirdly, detailed national research on experiences of single student mothers should be explored to create awareness to relevant bodies and institution. Surprisingly, there is a wide range of information regarding drug abuse in higher-level education but that is not the case in student mothers. (Beeler).As already been mentioned, single student parents are the largest and the fastest-growing population of the college student. Meanwhile, research about women in higher education is expanding but the experiences of single-student mothers are understudied despite having to endure a lot of suffering associated with both internal and external pressure to succeed both as a student and as a parent.

Additionally, counseling programs should be geared towards helping single student mothers to facilitate their achievement and improve their attendance. Counseling can be a good weapon to be used against single student mothers to drop out the same way it is used against drug abuse. Tellingly, institutions are using lame techniques to solve the issue of student drop out by only focusing on drug use. If only the root causes of school dropout were analyzed then institutions could have found the need to help the single student parents. Therefore, through counseling, single mothers can get assisted with their emotions and even peer influence and avoid giving up on their schooling due to depression.

Moreover, instead of profoundly investing in means of curbing drugs which never seems to yield any fruit, the focus should be to redistribute finance to assist the education of single student parents. The war on drugs has never been won and drugs continue to affect the brains of our students who continue to illicitly use drugs while at school. concurringly, the war on reducing the number of single student parent-school dropout can seemingly be easy to win the war. By providing financial support to these students they will be relieved of stress and will focus more on their school work which will enhance boost their performance. For instance, the majority of single parent mothers undergo stress due to low performance which enroots from external and internal pressure to meet personal goals. Thus, if they are less stressed, they are likely to finish up their education and this will reduce the number of schools drop out in the long run.

Conclusively, cases of school dropout continue to increase because the root cause of the problem is not well covered. For instance, institutions and relevant bodies only focus on drugs and how to curb and yet a large portion of the population that drop out consists of both drug users and single mothers. Furthermore, single student parents are also forced into drugs due to depression. Therefore, this proves that there is indeed the root cause of the problem. My argument, therefore, is that single student parents should be helped both financially and mentally. This is because they can be role models for any students that are faced with various difficulties which may lead them to drugs and subsequently dropping out of school before graduating. Also, this means is safe since single student parents are usually very determined to succeed in life and support their families making it easy for the institutions to provide help to them and achieve the goal of increasing graduation rates.

Work cited,

Garrett, Stacey D., and Sherry T. Robertson. "Mothering By Degrees: Single Mothers And The Pursuit Of Postsecondary Education". Journal Of Student Affairs Research And Practice, vol 56, no. 3, 2019, pp. 346-348. Informa UK Limited, doi:10.1080/19496591.2018.1545658.

Beeler, Sydney. "Undergraduate Single Mothers’ Experiences In Postsecondary Education". New Directions For Higher Education, vol 2016, no. 176, 2016, pp. 69-80. Wiley, doi:10.1002/he.20210.

Costa, Karen. "5 Strategies To Help Single Mothers Succeed In Higher Education". Women In Higher Education, vol 27, no. 11, 2018, pp. 13-13. Wiley, doi:10.1002/whe.20640.