Stories & Case Studies
The Austin Community College District (ACC) serves nearly 60,000 students in the Austin Metropolitan area and surrounding communities in Central Texas. In a spring 2025 survey, 4,500 ACC students (11.5% of the enrolled student body pursuing academic credit courses) self-identified as parents of a child under the age of 18, though leadership believes the actual parenting student population is probably closer to 25% of the student body.
As part of a cohort of colleges participating in the Moving From Data to Action — Scaling Support for Student Parents grant initiative, ACC is working to strengthen its supports for parenting students, in part by bolstering services and resources that help them meet their basic needs.
The college district’s North Star goal is to increase the student completion rate to 70% by 2030, said Angelica Cancino de Sandoval, director of basic needs systems and advocacy at ACC. Meeting students’ basic needs is one of the four pillars by which ACC aims to reach that goal.
“This pillar specifically includes child care, along with other basic needs categories that disproportionately impact parenting students,” said Cancino de Sandoval.
With that in mind, ACC is reimagining its child care scholarships to expand access to payment assistance for parenting students. This includes an updated scholarship pay scale which, as of fall 2025, ties more closely to credit hour enrollment. “Through this change, ACC hopes that students will move more quickly toward degree attainment,” Cancino de Sandoval explained, adding that this outcome would free up resources for even more students to receive support.
ACC Children’s Lab School. Photo courtesy of Austin Community College District.
The graduation ceremony for first cohort of the AVANCE to College Program in May 2024. Photo courtesy of Austin Community College District.
The college also requires scholarship applicants to apply to the Texas Workforce Commission’s Child Care Services (CCS) program, so that those who aren’t awarded scholarships from ACC may still receive assistance from the state and be connected to other community resources.
“When we help our students meet their basic needs, they can better focus on learning,” said Cancino de Sandoval. For ACC, basic needs include child care, transportation, and mental health support — all resources that can help parenting students with significant demands on their time and energy persist and thrive in college.
Like other colleges participating in the Moving From Data to Action initiative, ACC completed the Student Parent Opportunity Assessment in the 2023–24 school year. Cancino de Sandoval said this process taught college leadership the importance of including students in the policy development process.
Talking directly with parenting students, and the front-line staff who support them, is essential to creating policies and practices that set up this population for success. “By flattening communication, it’s easier to identify the barriers that are impacting parenting students,” said Cancino de Sandoval. With that information, college leaders are better positioned to create services, build partnerships, and implement policies that lead to greater student success.
Hearing directly from student parents can not only help college leadership better understand their needs, but it can also shed light on the strengths they bring with them.
Reflecting on what her team has learned about student parents in the last few years, Cancino de Sandoval said, “Listening to the stories of parenting students has really highlighted how dedicated, motivated, and resourceful our parenting students are to overcoming large financial and time barriers in order to achieve their goal of a better future for themselves and their children.”
