Generation Hope to Reach 3 Million Parenting Students by 2029

When Nicole Lynn Lewis founded Generation Hope in 2010, she realized that her organization could be the first place that parenting students are ever told “Yes.”

“The families we serve go out into the world, in educational and community settings, where the answer is often, ‘No.’ They face a ton of red tape and are asked to perform their poverty time and time again to get their foot in the door to resources,” said Lewis. “When we design programming at Generation Hope, our direct and systemic change work, we want to be a place of ‘Yes.’ They don’t have to jump through hoops to get resources. The assumption going in is they’re brilliant and full of potential.”

Nicole Lynn Lewis, founder and CEO of Generation Hope.Roughly one-in-five college students today are also parents. A May 2024 survey by research firm Trellis Strategies confirmed that student parents are much more likely to face financial barriers in their collegiate journeys than their non-parenting counterparts. They are also more likely to struggle with food and housing security and more likely to take on loans. These students are also more likely to have higher GPAs, while being more likely to face educational disruption. Generation Hope estimates that 52% of undergraduate student parents leave school without a degree in six years, compared to their non-parenting counterparts at 32%.

It’s why she and the board of directors at Generation Hope have decided on an ambitious five-year plan that will expand its work and impact over three million parenting students by 2029.

Lewis said that Generation Hope will cultivate leaders who can expand on the mission and dedicate themselves to the organization's Race Equity Blueprint, which acknowledges systemic racial inequity. The nonprofit organization plans to continue expanding its own workforce. Through intentional partnerships, Lewis said that Generation Hope plans to acquire more resources and share their message and data with institutions of higher education and policymakers across the country.

Already lauded as a national model, Generation Hope creates change through two actions: direct interventions with parenting students, and advocacy and systemic change efforts. Their direct interventions include their Scholar Program, which offers mentoring, tuition assistance, peer community, tutoring, and other wraparound supports to communities in the Washington, D.C., metro area and New Orleans, their latest regional expansion. Efforts to change policy use data collected through these direct points of contact as “proof in the pudding,” said Lewis.

“When we remove barriers, we see young parents and student parents do incredible things,” said Lewis. “We want to be proof point for advocates and scholars: when you do remove barriers, create intentional policies, believe in [parenting students], particularly in marginalized families, the sky is the limit. We can say this policy works, and here’s why.”