Single-parent students now will be directly supported for care and housing by Long Beach City College and Raise The Barr
– Long Beach, California Raise The Barr (RTB) and Long Beach City College (LBCC) have announced a unique cooperation to start a pilot program that will coordinate housing and care for low-income, single-parent students and their children. This is the first time that the two organizations have collaborated to improve academic performance through a program that focuses on LBCC students with single parents and their families.
Uduak-Joe Ntuk, president of the Long Beach Community College District’s (LBCCD) Board of Trustees, stated that single parents frequently face a difficult choice: whether to provide care and assistance for their children or to enroll in college courses to improve their own and their family’s lives. “With this new cooperation with Raise The Barr, our students with a single parent will no longer be forced to make this tough decision. They can take their lessons and focus on earning their degree or transferring to a university without having to worry about paying their rent or finding inexpensive child care.”
LBCC will select twelve students to participate in this one-year trial program. Long Beach City College’s CARE, CalWORKs, and Basic Needs staff will collaborate closely with RTB’s Whole Family Program Coordinators to deliver comprehensive academic, mental health, and other basic needs services to LBCC’s single-parent students and their families.
- Subsidized housing
- Childcare
- Financial literacy and career development workshops held at LBCC
Dr. Mike Muoz, superintendent and president of the LBCCD, remarked, “From personal experience, I can attest to the difficulty of the obstacles faced by single parents attending college.” “Many options, including as daycare and student housing, that would aid single parents are typically unavailable until a student enrolls in a four-year college or university. This vital cooperation opens opportunities and provides tools for our single-parent kids to continue their education and assist their families flourish.”
Through this partnership, the initial cohort of single-parent students at LBCC will have access to Raise The Barr’s whole-family program, which is designed to assist single parents stay in college by working consciously and concurrently with both generations. Activities centered on peer-to-peer assistance, mental health and wellbeing, healthy relationships, job training and career development, and financial empowerment with an emphasis on lowering financial strain, stabilizing spending, and growing wealth will be supported by Raise The Barr.
Lori Barr, co-founder of Raise The Barr and a native of Southern California, stated, “We are thrilled to introduce these new programs with LBCC. We expect that they will serve as scalable, cost-effective model programs for community colleges across the state, combining wrap-around services with housing subsidies to boost the six-year graduation rate of single-parent students.
On a national scale, it is estimated that one in five undergraduates is a parent, with almost half of them being single parents. Student parents are more likely to identify with one or more marginalized communities; they are more likely to be first-generation students, women, and BIPOC, and to live at or below the federal poverty line. Students who are single parents are significantly less likely to graduate than their peers. Additionally, they graduate with greater student debt. Improving racial, ethnic, and gender equity in access to higher education necessitates promoting college achievement among single-parent students.
About Raise The Barr
2016 co-founded by UCLA All-American, Loyola High School Alum, 4xPro-Bowl linebacker, and 2022 Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award finalist Anthony Barr, and his mother, Southern California native Lori Barr. Their experience as a single-parent family served as inspiration for Raise The Barr. Raise The Barr collaborates with single-parent students and their children to improve their educational opportunities and economic mobility. Students with a single parent and Raise The Barr collaborate to develop and implement comprehensive programs that promotes the health and well-being of the entire family. RTB invests in targeted supportive services and system-change projects to assist single-parent students (SPS) and their children in achieving their financial, academic, and health and well-being objectives. Collectively, our efforts increase the likelihood that a single-parent student will persist and earn a degree, resulting in a variety of positive outcomes for families and society. You may learn more about Raise the Barr by visiting www.raisethebarr.org or by following the organization on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
About Long Beach City College
Long Beach City College serves the cities of Avalon, Lakewood, Long Beach, and Signal Hill and comprises of two campuses with an enrolment of approximately 25,000 students per semester. By delivering high-quality educational programs and support services to our varied communities, LBCC fosters equitable student learning and accomplishment, academic excellence, and career development. For additional information about Long Beach City College, please visit www.LBCC.edu.
