OPINION
Motivated by her struggles as a parenting mother and college student, Krystle Pale is working to make California higher education institutions more welcoming to families.
Pale is a graduate student at the University of California Santa Cruz. She also advocates for parenting students and children through The California Alliance for Student Parent Success.
A mother of five, she recently wrote at The Hechinger Report that more than 3 million college students in the U.S. are parents.
To achieve a college degree, “we must overcome many obstacles, as colleges aren’t designed for students like us,” Pale wrote.
But it doesn’t have to be that way, she wrote in the op-ed:
For me, the last hurdle I had to clear was graduation itself. After years of sacrifice — not just my own, but my whole family’s — walking the stage with my four children at my graduation from the University of California, Santa Cruz was deeply important.
The university, however, didn’t understand that or account for us. When I asked to accept my diploma with my kids, I was met with resistance, a particularly tough reminder of the work institutions have left to do to meet the needs and priorities of student-parents. …
My children sacrificed their home and sense of belonging so that I could pursue this dream. As graduation approached, I knew I wanted to walk the stage with them. They had earned it just as much as I had.
Yet the administration denied my request, citing the added logistical difficulties. They suggested I bring my kids to a separate, informal celebration for those of us living in family student housing instead. The offer sounded like “be invisible or settle for less.”
I immediately started mobilizing UCSC’s Student Parent Organization, where I was president. Working with the student government, I drafted a resolution permitting student-parents to walk with their children. I reached out to alumni, administrators, fellow parents and friends for support.
Thanks to our collective voice, the dean of students changed his mind, offered an apology and committed to changing the policy going forward for all graduating student-parents. Though my kids and I were placed at the end of the ceremony, we crossed the stage together as a family.
That seed of inclusion will grow in them, just like it will for all the children of student-parents who walk that path in the future.
Read the full piece at The Hechinger Report.
