• by Danielle Oster , June 2, 2025

Students balancing the demands of being a parent with higher education are often one financial hardship away from dropping out, particularly if the hardship occurs mid-semester, when traditional financial aid sources are unavailable.

The issue impacts a lot of students. According to Scholarship America, which describes itself as the nation’s largest administrator of private scholarships, one out of every five of the more than 3.8 million college students in the U.S., are raising children—nearly 10% of whom are single mothers.

So Scholarship America launched a campaign to raise funds for the National Emergency Scholarship Fund for Student Parents, a first-of-its-kind program designed to provide rapid, flexible emergency aid to help student parents overcome unexpected expenses and stay enrolled in school. It follows the launch of a pilot version of the initiative launched last year in New Hampshire and Texas.

“The support I received made a huge difference for me and my family. It helped me cover part of my medical bills, pay for daycare for my son, and gave me the opportunity to register for summer classes,” Watson Saint-Martin, an aid recipient and student at Nashua Community College in New Hampshire, said in a statement.

Launched in partnership with the ECMC Foundation and Trellis Foundation, the $500,000 national fundraising drive kicked off on Mother’s Day, and runs through Father’s Day, June 15.

According to Scholarship America CEO Mike Nylund, the organization arrived at the focus on student parents after extensive research showing they’re the group that would benefit the most from such an initiative.

“The problem has existed for a long time,” Nylund told Marketing Daily. “Emergency scholarships can go a very long way in changing that trajectory for [student parents],” he said, adding that a difference of $400-$500 can often be the difference between whether or not such students drop out of school.

To raise awareness of the issue, and drive donations to the campaign, the group put out a campaign video explaining the issues facing “Student Parents & The Impact Of Emergency Aid,” sharing real stories from student parents.

“Financial aid is confusing; it's confusing to families, it’s confusing to students," said Nylund. “We put out this video to help try to get people to understand that financial aid counselors are between a rock and a hard place. On the other side of that are state regulations, federal regulations, and institutional policies, that keep them from solving that,” he added. “The video brings what I've been experiencing as a practitioner in this space.”

The campaign arrives amid the Trump administration’s attempts to defund and dismantle the federal Department of Education.

“The timing is just a coincidence," but "the fact that we’re launching this now is great,” Nylund said. “The timing couldn't be better....The need is only going to increase.”