Poverty Case Study

In the United States, more than one in three women live in poverty or on the brink of it (Patron, 2014). The current federal poverty level starts at $16,020 for a family of two, $20,160 for a family of 3, and so on at increments of slightly more than $4,000 for each additional family member (Buteau, 2007). There are 106 million people in the United States that have incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, or are low-income. About 42 million of these low-income individuals are women and 28 million are their children (Patron, 2014). This phenomenon of the disproportionate rate of the population’s poor being women is known as the feminization of poverty.
Aside from women making up most of the nation’s poor, the majority of these

In fact, student parents are half as likely to be enrolled full-time as dependent students. Nearly two-thirds (65.8 percent) of student parents enroll part-time, compared to 30 percent of dependent students. Additionally, 29 percent of student parents have enrolled less than half-time (often defined as taking fewer than two courses) for at least one month out of the school year. The latter is significant, as less than half-time enrollment in particular can reduce the amount of financial aid for which a student is eligible. (Huelsman, 2013) Part-time students are less likely to complete a degree once enrolled and more likely to withdraw from college altogether, and student parents who attend part-time are even less likely to complete (Huelsman, 2013).
Single mothers also find that they often aren’t having their need met at their institutions. Despite the fact that student parents are more likely to receive federal tuition assistance in the form of Pell Grants than non-parents, (43 percent and 23 percent respectively) the average unmet financial need of student parents after all aid is still high. Single student parents have an average annual unmet need of $6,117 compared to $3,650 for non-parent students (Nelson,

Creating true economic opportunity through higher education requires promoting and preparing women, especially single mothers, for careers in STEM and traditionally male-dominated fields (Nelson, Froehner, & Gault, 2013). By counseling student mothers to pursue these fields in which they are underrepresented, it will facilitate single-mother student success. Counselors should also provide single-mother students with concrete guidance that is more relevant to their daily lives; i.e. campus resources, public assistance, book vouchers, child-friendly meal plans, etc. (Cerven, Park, Nations, & Nielsen,