College students with children represent a growing segment of the college-going population. As a subset of this group, single mothers in college are considered nontraditional by their age, employment status, parental status, and status as independent for the purposes of financial aid. Overall, the percentage of single mothers who complete a…

The number of single mothers continues to grow across the nation, and many are at a socioeconomic disadvantage. Little research focuses, however, on how single mothers describe their experiences of balancing motherhood, work, and pursuing higher education, all while undergoing food insecurity. Lazarus and Folkman's transactional theory of stress…

Poverty impacts the holistic wellness and care of single mothers, and single-mother families are at higher risk of poverty than other household types. College is a vehicle for academic growth and development, fostering opportunities for spiritual formation. This phenomenological qualitative study investigated the impact of Christian spiritual…

This qualitative study focuses on the cultural knowledge of low-income single Black mothers and their motherwork in the college planning process of their child(ren). This narrative inquiry will use Black Feminist Theory through a cultural Afrocentric lens. Black Feminist Theory explains systemic racism and other social, cultural, and political…

The single-mother college student population has quietly grown to over two million undergraduate students over the last two decades, but most of them will not attain a degree. What has been missing is a better understanding of the lived experiences of successfully persisting single-mother college students as told by the women themselves. This…

Little is known or understood about the intimate experiences of single mothers and how they navigate being both mother and a college student while working in non-traditional occupations. Pertaining to gender, non-traditional occupations are defined in the literature as those occupations that are disproportionately filled by a specific gender.…

Research has shown that mindful parenting improves parent well-being, parent satisfaction, and improves overall family function. This quantitative study examined whether the practice of mindfulness is related to single mothers' level of stress and the quality of parent-teen relationships. A survey was offered to single mothers raising one or more…

Relationships are the essence of human existence (Close et al., 2020; Condon et al., 2019). Relationships can be introduced to humans as early as conception. While biological parents can be expected to serve as the primary figures to cultivate connectedness and bonds, literature has shown a great disruption between a child and their biological…

The Institute for Women's Policy Studies (2017, September) reported that only eight percent of single mothers enrolled in higher education completed their studies and graduated with a degree in six years. This may be due to a lack of social support and not using the counseling services for their own well-being. Studies show that behavioral…

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore African American single mothers' lived experiences of managing their children's remote learning and physical activities during the COVID-19 shelter-in-place order as they managed and coped during this unprecedented time. There are limited published peer-reviewed articles about…

The present literature on leadership in higher education reveals that there is an association between the support of student affairs leaders and the success of the students who are single parents. However, there is a lack of research concerning the effectiveness of the support of student affairs leaders and how their support helps with the…

Institutions of higher education are under pressure to enroll, retain, and graduate competent students today more than ever. Although the number of single mothers attending college continues to increase each year, the graduation rates of single mothers do not. These low graduation rates indicate that special attention should be given to the needs…

Although single student mothers are the largest and fastest-growing student demographic in higher education institutions, the experiences of single mothers in academia remain under-explored, as the increase in literature addresses the experiences of women in higher education. Obtaining graduate level education is an ongoing challenge for single…

Former foster youth are one of the lowest-performing groups at the college level, despite existing support programs at colleges. Former foster youth often age out of the foster care system only to be faced with housing insecurity, food insecurity, and a lack of social capital providing support. Former foster youth student-single parents may face…

As emergent new traditional student groups, such as first-generation and single mother students, increase on college campuses, this study attempts to highlight the voices of single-mother first-generation transfer students. To identify how their motherhood identity has influenced how they navigate the four-year institutional environment. Also, to…