Approximately 230 university students statewide could lose their means to pay for child care, should the currently proposed state co-chairs’ budget be approved.
Oregon Student Child Care Program currently receives $1 million per year. That money assists low-income student parents with an identified need at Oregon’s colleges and universities. Without that assistance, many students with children would be forced to drop out of school.
“For the families that receive it, it’s go to school or not because of the high costs of child care,” said Dennis Reynolds, EMU Child Care Center Coordinator. “It’s vitally important for those people who need it.”
The Governor’s Recommended Budget originally proposed to maintain the program’s funding but would switch which organization had authority over the funds. Then the co-chairs cut the program completely, eliminating the need for the transfer.
University student Natasha Owens’ 6-year-old son Tyler is in kindergarten at Harris Elementary School. Tyler stays at the co-op while Owens is in class, but she said if the program is cut she won’t be able to afford daycare.
Owens already faces the financial challenges college students handle every day, but with the added pressure of supporting another person, Owens finds it difficult to believe legislators would want to cut a program critical to the well-being of young families.
“My schooling is not just for me, it’s for my kid also,” Owens said. “Why would you not support the people that know where they’re headed in life … that have some direction and have others rely on them?”
An architecture major, Owens has found professors to be understanding thus far when she is forced to take Tyler to the studio, but she doesn’t know how accommodating others will be if and when it becomes a regular occurrence.
But that may not even be a relevant question. Owens said if the program is cut, she will have to find a new way to support Tyler and herself or drop out of school.
That is the dilemma facing the handful of families at the University who receive funds from the Student Child Care Program, said Reynolds.
Some seek assistance through ASUO Child Care Subsidies, which pay 20 to 50 percent of child care costs for some low-income student parents. Currently the first 190 eligible applicants receive subsidies, but the number of recipients varies at the discretion of the ASUO Subsidy Task Force.
But for many, those subsidies aren’t enough.
There are 2,657 student parents on the waiting list for the Student Child Care Program, all of whom cannot be accepted because of the program’s already minimal budget. People are on the waiting list for up to a year before they can even apply, said Reynolds.
“There are far more student parents with need than the funding can address,” he said. “In the big picture it seems like all of Oregon’s taxpayers should be investing in this, not just those who pay fees at the U of O.”
Reynolds called it a “2-for-1 investment”: an investment in a parent gaining an education, and an investment in the parent’s ability to give his or her child a quality childcare setting.
“The situation keeps getting more difficult for people with children who are trying to go to school,” Reynolds said. “The lowest-income students aren’t here because they can’t afford to be here. And that’s not only a loss for them, it’s a loss for Oregon.”
Almost 75 percent of the University’s student parents used to qualify for food stamps, and now only 40 percent meet the standard, Reynolds said. With tuition rising annually and financial assistance decreasing, many student parents can’t afford school anymore.
On Thursday the Oregon Student Association will host a lobby at the Capitol where student parents from across the state will meet with legislators and deliver “helping hands” cards to communicate the need of student parents and their children. Interested parents are welcome to attend.
OSA Executive Director Melissa Unger said the group wants to “make sure that we’re not actually eliminating quality programs at a time when the state budget’s actually growing.”
There is still time to save the program and convince legislators to reinvest in higher education, but Reynolds doesn’t necessarily see that happening.
“I’m always a little bit hopeful,” he said, “but it takes a champion (in the legislature) to advocate on behalf of these needy students. And I don’t know that that person has stepped up yet.”
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