Education grant helping Miami student-parents

December 15, 2006

Miami University continues to administer a $303, 512 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to provide scholarships to eligible student-parents who have children enrolled in a child care program at one of the university’s three campuses.

Grant monies are being dispersed over four years in the amount of $75,878 annually. This is the second year of the program.

“It can be the difference between a student-parent being able to succeed in earning their college degree or potentially having to drop out due to lack of affordable child care,” said Jacqueline Leader, director of Campus Kids childcare center at Miami Hamilton and the grant’s Principal Investigator.

One of the main components of the grant is a student-parent scholarship program. The scholarship is a reduction in child care bills as part of the grant. Student-parents must be receiving Pell Grant assistance through their financial aid package to be eligible.

Leader said the university wants to make sure that student-parents on all three campuses are aware that scholarships are available and eligible student-parents are encouraged to apply. The children of student-parents must be enrolled in one of the three Miami University affiliated centers.

The university applied for the grant through its Child Care Access Means Parents In School (CCAMPIS) program to provide high-quality child care at an affordable cost for non-traditional undergraduate students with young children.

The grant program is a collaborative effort of Mini University on the  Oxford campus, Campus Kids on the Hamilton campus and the Children’s Center on the Middletown campus.

The program is designed to reduce the cost of child care for low-income parents by providing subsidies for child care. As part of the grant, the university also is providing a general academic enhancement program to reduce the number of student-parents who are potentially at academic risk.

For more information and scholarship applications, contact Jacqueline Leader, 785-3011, leaderjm@muohio.edu.