But if the student were able to provide for more than 50 percent of her or his child's care, the student would be considered an independent and thus would qualify for more aid.
K. Sue Wood, senior associate of student awards at Stanford University, said in a June interview that an undergraduate mother at the university would most likely live on-campus in one of the available apartments. She said she did not know if a financial aid package would cover off-campus housing, but said that the child of an undergraduate would receive health insurance and that the university would pay a maximum of $3,750 per year toward child-care expenses.
But raising a child while attending college is not as rare as it seems. Of the 20,000 students at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, more than 800 have young children in their care, says Joanne R. Levinson, director of Amherst's Commuter Services and Housing Resource Center. Most student parents at Amherst live off-campus.
UMass-Amherst has many resources devoted to undergraduates with families. The school hosts dinners, brunches and information sessions and offers free child care, transportation and meals for participating parents and children. About half the participants in each program are undergraduates, says Levinson, who helped organize these efforts several years ago.
Parents at UMass-Amherst also have many financial services available to them.
In addition to factoring family size into financial aid packages, UMass-Amherst provides additional tuition assistance for child care for undergraduates. Funding for this program is provided by a $2 fee paid by all students. According to Levinson, even more money may be set aside for child care by next fall.
"We'd be glad to help create similar programs in other schools," Levinson says, recognizing that the large amount of support Amherst offers to undergraduate parents is "highly unusual."
But while Amherst may be more than willing to offer its services, Dingman says that undergraduate mothers will most likely always feel as if they have to knock on several doors before finding the help they need.
"It's likely to be always that way. When you have such a small population, that's bound to happen," Dingman says. "We want very much to be supportive, but there's no such thing as one-stop shopping when you're a single parent at Harvard."
A Worthy Struggle
No matter how hard it may be at times to get the support and the resources they need, neither Ocon nor Payanzo says they regret their decisions to have a child and to come to Harvard. Both women are adamant that other undergraduates who find themselves in the same situation they were in should not feel as if an abortion or leaving Harvard are the only options.
"I know a lot of girls who have been pregnant but don't think it's possible to do anything but have an abortion," Payanzo says. "I don't know why so many women quit school."
Ocon agrees.
"The fact of the matter is that people get pregnant, and we need to find a way to help them," Ocon says. "I have never once regretted my decision to have Bailey, but that's not to say that the process of raising her while at Harvard has been easy."
FRIDAY: Both Gina M. Ocon '98-'00 and Anna N. Payanzo '00 manage to be both full-time mothers and students. Part one tracks their lives at Harvard and traces their paths to college.
TODAY: What resources does the College provide undergraduate mothers? Part two explores the aid Harvard offers undergraduate mothers and compares it with that of other colleges.