Clark Atlanta Graduate Acacia McBride Crowned Miss California USA

HBCU students — disproportionately first-generation, working parents, and from low-income households — need childcare to stay enrolled. When federal childcare assistance has 400,000 kids waiting, that's 400,000 families where a parent may have to choose between their degree and their child. Black women are overrepresented among student parents at HBCUs and in low-wage work that makes childcare unaffordable without federal help. This waitlist is a dropout pipeline in disguise.