Struggling student mothers studying at LBCC would benefit from more support and services, catering to issues that hinder their opportunity to a successful academic performance.
While LBCC offers programs, like Extended Opportunity Programs & Services, CARE, and CalWORKS, which are designed for students with children, low income, and household challenges; however, they are not beneficial for all mother’s studying on campus due to eligibility requirements.
Supporting services like childcare, transportation, and meal cards would benefit mothers, by having more study time, reduce stress, enjoy more student life, and clearly focus on being a mother.
While LBCC has a child development center directly on the PCC, mothers studying at the LAC can utilize the Child Development Center on Clark Street which is approximately a 22 minute walk or a 15 minute bus ride.
The Child Development Daycare Center (CDC) at PCC operates during the week from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and full day child care services at the CDC on Clark Street, over a mile from the LAC, are offered from 7:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
If mothers studying at LAC do not have personal transportation, daycare provided at another campus a few miles away creates more strain on them.
In addition, the LBCC child care services have a strict acceptance policy in terms of age, income requirements, and prices, which make it difficult for struggling student mothers to receive the child care they need if they fall just out of those requirements.
Student mothers often return to school after giving birth, but LBCC child care prohibits children under the age of two from enrollment.
This means that from one to four semesters, a student mother with a child under two years old will not have an option to benefit from LBCC’s child care programs.
In conjunction, mothers who are not eligible for EOPS, CARE, and CalWORKS services, who do not meet low income requirements and who are not homeless or receiving county assistance are also not eligible to receive reduced or free child care while studying.
The requirements of services created for student mothers should be fair to all; some moms are not homeless but still have trouble paying their rent.
Other mothers do not qualify for county services, but have trouble putting food on their dinner tables.
LBCC should offer more unconditional services to mothers will create higher success rates among this demographic.