Student Parent Support Initiative
Helping colleges and community organizations develop and implement services that support student parents across the state.
The Minnesota Student Parent Support Initiative (SPSI) aims to provide much-needed support to entities and institutions to assist college-age pregnant and current parenting students in successfully earning a postsecondary credential.
As a competitive grant program to be administered in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Health, postsecondary institutions, professional organizations, and community-based organizations may apply for funds to develop and implement services and programs that would support the unique needs of parenting students across the state.
Grants will be used to offer services to support the academic goals, health, and well-being of student parents. Secured in the 2023 Legislative Session, $3 million was allocated over the next biennium to fund SPSI.
Program Goals
SPSI aims to bridge the opportunity gap by increasing access to crucial resources and services, ensuring that children have a healthy start and families have access to affordable and quality child care and early education; access to mental health supports; and stable housing. By helping stabilize their needs in college, this initiative sets the foundation for overall future success.
By supporting parenting students, Minnesota invests in greater economic stability through:
- Student parents’ future participation in the workforce
- Increased income taxes
- Savings in public assistance programs
Student parents face multiple barriers to college enrollment, persistence, and completion. These barriers include, but are not limited to, constraints with time and money, lack of child care resources and academic support, diminished motivation or may feel excluded from traditional campus support services.
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, re-enrollment rates of students with children dropped dramatically. Additionally, for students who reported having dependents on their FAFSA, applications are down 13 percent over previous years.
The best way to ensure a child is successful in college is to help their parent succeed. Parental education is linked to upward mobility in their children through increased lifetime earnings, improved reading and mathematics skills, improved health, increased college enrollment, persistence, and completion, in addition to decreased incarceration, teenage pregnancy, and poverty rates. The SPSI will work with institutions to provide pregnant students and students of young children information and support regarding available and new resources to help them succeed.
Eligible grant applicants are institutions/organizations located within Minnesota and fall into one or more of the following categories:
- Minnesota postsecondary institutions
- Professional organizations
- Community-based organizations
- Political Subdivisions
- Tribal Sovereign Nations
- Child Care Providers
Eligible services include:
- Program development costs (including staff salaries)
- Costs related to the start-up of on-campus child care
- Health and Wellness activities for pregnant and parenting students and/or their children
- Evaluation and data collection
- Direct financial assistance to pregnant and parenting students including:
- Scholarships
- Basic needs support (food, housing, diapers, and other support that is not an emergency grant)
- Emergency grants as defined by Federal Student Aid and
- Expenses related to child care
Postsecondary institutions may act as the fiscal agents in partnership with a local nongovernmental agency, child care center, or other organization that serves student parents.
In anticipation of continued state appropriations to SPSI during the 2025 legislative session, OHE estimates that $2,662,000 will be appropriated for SPSI grants in Fiscal Year 2026.
The maximum grant amount is $250,000 for the year. This is subject to change based on the outcomes of the 2025 legislative session. Please note that current SPSI grantees are ineligible to apply this funding cycle.
Applications for Fiscal year 2026 SPSI Grants closed on May 29, 2025.
- April 21, 2025 - Request for Proposals available to applicants
- May 5, 2025 (11:00 a.m. CT) - Student Parent Support Initiative Grant Proposal Workshop – Virtual (see teams link below)
- May 19, 2025 (4:00 p.m. CT) - Technical Question Deadline
- May 29, 2025 (4:00 p.m. CT) - Proposal Submission Deadline
- July 28, 225 - Award Notice to Applicants
- August 12, 2025 (1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. CT) - Mandatory Grantee Orientation – Grantees will receive a virtual teams invitation after their award notice.
Proposals must be submitted by 4:00 p.m. CT on May 29, 2025 through the OHE Competitive Online Grants Management system.
If you need assistance with the grants management system, please email GWI.OHE@state.mn.us.
- Central Lakes College
- Project Title: CLC Student Parent Support Initiative
- College of St. Scholastica
- Project Title: CSS Student Parent Support Initiative
- Healthy Community Initiative
- Project Title: Rice County Postsecondary Student Parents Support Program
- Herzing University
- Project Title: Building Family Foundations: Leveling the Field for Student Parents (BFF)
- Jeremiah Program
- Project Title: Whole Family Support for Student Parent Single Moms in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Rochester
- Metropolitan State University
- Project Title: Student Parent Support Initiative
- Minneapolis Community and Technical College
- Project Title: Student Parent Support Initiative Grant
- Minnesota State University, Mankato
- Project Title: Maverick Student Parent Support
- North Hennepin Community College
- Project Title: Parent Support Program
- Raise the Barr
- Project Title: Dunwoody Raise The Barr Stable Housing Cohort
- Saint Catherine University
- Project Title: St. Catherine University Student Parent Support Initiative
- University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
- Project Title: SPHC 2Gen Basic Needs and Child Enrichment Grants
- Dual Training Grant
- Dual Training Grant: Legal Cannabis Industry
- Hunger Free Campus Grants
- Inclusive Higher Education Grant
- Intervention for College Attendance Grant
- Emergency Assistance for Postsecondary Students (EAPS) Grant
- Concurrent Enrollment Grant
- Student Parent Support Initiative Grant
- Student Loan Debt Counseling Grant
- Spinal Cord Injury and Traumatic Brain Injury Research Grant
- Tomassoni ALS Research Grant
- Previous Competitive Grant Programs