Generation hopes to reach 3 million student parents by 2029.

When Nicole Lynn Lewis founded Generation Hope in 2010, she realized her organization could be the first place elementary school students heard “Yes.”

“The families we serve go out into the world, into educational and community settings, where the answer is often ‘No.’ They are faced with a lot of red tape and are asked to do their poor work over and over again to get to the door of resources,” Lewis said. “When we design Generation Hope’s programming, 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 is that they are bright and full of potential.”

Nicole Lynn Lewis, founder and CEO of Generation Hope.About one in five college students is also now a parent. A May 2024 study by research firm Trellis Strategies found that student parents are significantly more likely to face financial barriers to their college careers than their non-parent peers. They are also more likely to struggle with food and housing security and to take out loans. These students are also more likely to have higher GPAs, while also facing more disruptions to their education. Generation Hope estimates that 52% of student parents graduate from college without a degree within six years, compared to 32% of their non-parent peers.

That’s why she and Generation Hope’s board of directors decided on an ambitious five-year plan that will expand its operations to include more than three million students learning about parenting by 2029.

Lewis said Generation Hope will develop leaders who can advance the mission and dedication of the organization’s Race Equity Blueprint, which recognizes systemic racial inequality. The nonprofit plans to continue to grow its own workforce. Through intentional partnerships, Lewis said Generation Hope plans to acquire more resources and share its message and data with institutions of higher education and policymakers across the country.

Already praised as a national model, Generation Hope is driving change through two efforts: direct interventions with students’ parents and advocacy and systemic outreach. Their direct interventions include the Scholar Program, which offers mentoring, tutoring, peer community, tutoring and other comprehensive support to communities in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and New Orleans, their latest regional expansion. The policy change efforts use data collected through these direct points of contact as “proof in the pudding,” Lewis said.

“When we remove barriers, we see young parents and student parents doing amazing things,” Lewis said. “We want to be proof to advocates and researchers: When you remove barriers, you create intentional policies, you believe in (raising students), especially in marginalized families, the sky’s the limit. We can say these policies work, and here’s why.”

In many ways, the new five-year strategic plan is a continuation of work already underway behind the scenes. In 2021, Generation Hope had 15 employees. Now, there are 48. They began serving seven teen mothers directly in the D.C. metro area. Now, with the expansion to the South, Generation Hope’s Student Program has grown to 175 in D.C. and 35 in New Orleans. They have begun planning for expansion to a third city, which has yet to be determined but will likely be another urban location in the South. That new community will include 25 teen parents.

One way Generation Hope has recently tried to influence the system is by addressing the gender bias in policies that often focus on women who are single mothers rather than fathers.

“A lot of times what you see in policy, the default support in a lot of institutions, is for mothers,” said Dr. Brittani Williams, director of advocacy, policy and research at Generation Hope, describing how fathers who are parents are often immediately perceived and labeled by others on campus as babysitters.

Williams said Generation Hope used direct methods to focus the policy on fathers, not excluding single mothers but recognizing that male college students, particularly men of color, are more likely to drop out before gaining accreditation.

“Economic mobility is a core tenet of our mission and work. At a time when the return on investment in higher education is being questioned, particularly for men of color — fathers — who don’t pursue higher education, we believe we are in a position where we can say, ‘Hey, these policies that were in place before were not equitable and were not just supportive to our fathers who are students,’” Williams said.

Dr. DeRionne Pollard, president of Nevada State University and board member of Generation Hope.Dr. DeRionne Pollard, president of Nevada State University and one of the board members who helped shape Generation Hope’s new five-year plan, said she’s proud to be part of an organization that thinks so deeply and intentionally about the next best steps to take when making changes. Those are the lessons she’s taken home at her institution.

“Don’t just say, ‘I want to serve this population,’” Pollard said. “Ask how you can systematically understand your data, create a working group to solve problems, prototype pilot concepts in a way that can be responsive, elevate student voices in your institutional space, and then start making policy.”

She added that higher education institutions need to respond to the needs of their students and initiate data collection points to find out who their students really are, including students willing to parent and care for children.

“Generation Hope’s slogan is, ‘Families are the future.’ They are the future of higher education,” Pollard said. “It’s about communities, it’s about the economy, it’s about the safety, health and wealth of our nation. We can’t afford to leave anyone behind.”

Liann Herder can be contacted at (email protected).