Our View: USU groups should support child care

There are a lot of parents on campus.

The fact that most students will at some point in their scholastic career share a classroom with a kid in diapers is a strong indicator that there is a need for student parents to have care facilities for their children.

It’s great that most students seem to take the presence of an infant in stride, but they shouldn’t have too. It’s great that most professors are willing to lecture an audience that includes people who haven’t found their own nose yet, but once again, they shouldn’t have to.

Utah State offers so many great facilities for students, child care really should be part of them.

With so many students bringing kids to school or making sacrifices – financial or otherwise – to leave them at home, we’re positive people would take advantage of it.

College life is stressful enough already, doubly so for students with kids.

The Women’s Center has been working on an improved child care center and lobbying university groups for support of it. Not even faculty have the resources they need when it comes to day care. But this isn’t just a women’s issue and this isn’t just a problem for faculty, which makes good child care all the more important.

Half of all graduating students at Utah State will leave not only with a diploma, but with a spouse. While not all of these couples will leave with children, some will. But these aren’t the students we are worried about … our concern is for those USU parents who don’t graduate.

When child care is unavailable or unaffordable, many students are forced to find other options to juggle class schedules. With online and extension classes requiring a separate tuition payment, continuing in school can be just as economically unfeasible as hiring a babysitter.

We encourage all campus groups, particularly ASUSU and Faculty Senate, to take a close look at this problem. The lack of adequate child care means USU is losing faculty and students.