Maryland and Virginia Just Changed Higher Education for Student Parents

Generation Hope helps shape local and federal policies that expand opportunity for families. Much like tectonic shifts, major policy reform often progresses slowly at the surface, but continuous advocacy builds the underlying momentum required to permanently and positively transform the legislative landscape. 

The most recent shifts that help student parents in Maryland and Virginia represent groundbreaking progress. It took years of advocacy, steadfast belief, research, and behind-the-scenes conversations to help make these laws a reality. These two new laws, that formalize student parent data collection, are among the most essential types of reforms we call for at Generation Hope.

These laws build on years of sustained advocacy by Generation Hope in partnership with parenting college students across the country through our Student Parent Advocacy Alliance (SPAA). We engaged a deep coalition of student parents, higher education researchers, and policymakers. In 2024, we championed Maryland House Bill 463, which would have required public colleges and universities to collect data on students’ parenting status. Although the bill ultimately did not pass, the campaign elevated the issue statewide. The passage of these new laws in Maryland and Virginia reflects that meaningful policy change is built through partnership and long term commitment to advocacy. 

In the spring of 2026, Virginia and Maryland became the 7th and 8th states in the U.S. to pass laws mandating student parent data collection in higher education. The primary goal of these bills is to make parenting college student data visible to state policymakers and academic institutions, enabling them to better provide resources, tailor financial aid and support the creation of family-inclusive campuses.

Despite growing momentum, only eight states—California, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, Texas, and Virginia— have enacted laws requiring colleges to collect data on students’ parenting status. Because there are so few state laws and mechanisms in place there has long been both the need and the opportunity for institutions to lead, even in the absence of state and federal policy.

Collecting the data on parenting students is a strong start.  It is important that colleges and universities use that data to create more inclusive environments for their success. When Generation Hope first launched our flagship Scholar program in 2010, Founder & CEO Nicole Lynn Lewis visited colleges and universities across Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia expecting to find data on how many students were parents. Instead, she discovered that virtually no such data existed. This discovery led to the decision that Generation Hope should develop and expand its Learning & Innovation work, and create FamilyU, a comprehensive, customized, evidence-based, two-year capacity-building experience designed to build and refine institutional competencies to improve student parent success. 

Through FamilyU, Generation Hope has now partnered with 30 colleges and universities across 14 states and Washington, D.C., helping institutions build more family-inclusive campuses. To date, these efforts have created a positive impact for 165,000 parenting college students and their families. A core pillar of every FamilyU cohort is data: each participating institution develops and implements a student parent data collection strategy to better identify parenting students, so they can use that data to drive lasting institutional change.

About Virginia: HB 427

Introduced by Virginia Delegate Destiny LeVere Bolling, this bill was signed into law in April 2026. The bill requires Virginia’s colleges and universities to ask students whether they are parents. 

Students are not legally required to disclose their parenting status. Collection is voluntary and a part of a self-reported demographics collection option. The legislation continues to build upon robust higher education data infrastructure in Virginia. The long-term intent is to eventually link student parent demographics to workforce outcomes in order to better study educational investments. You can learn more about the new bill that was signed into law in April of 2026 here. 

About Maryland: HB 6 / SB 420

The Maryland legislation was introduced as cross-filed companion bills: HB 6 — sponsored by Delegate Ken Kerr (D–Frederick County) and SB 420 — sponsored by Senator Mary Washington (D–Baltimore City). The bills were submitted to the House of Delegates and the Senate simultaneously to speed up the legislative process, and both were titled, “Public Institutions of Higher Education – Pregnant and Parenting Students – Plan and Reporting.” 

These new laws took effect on July 1, 2026. They require the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) to collect student-level data regarding parental status from all public higher education institutions, with the exception of the University of Maryland Global Campus. 

The data collection forms will ask specific questions to gather data on parental status, including the age of the children under a student's care, and the specific types of caregiving responsibilities a person engages in both inside and outside of their household. 

The bill will expand the Pregnant and Parenting Student Support Act to include community colleges, requiring them to publish comprehensive institutional support plans that include family-inclusive strategies for things like child care scholarships, referrals to basic needs supports, and more.

You can learn more about the new laws from the official Maryland General Assembly HB 6 Report. 

The Impact

Generation Hope has already seen the power of student parent data through FamilyU. When colleges identify and understand their student parent populations, they can make informed decisions that drive meaningful change. That can mean creating family spaces, adopting family-friendly campus policies, expanding childcare, strengthening data systems, or—as Virginia State University did—creating on-campus family housing.

As more states begin identifying and tracking student parents, the evidence will become increasingly undeniable: when colleges know who their student parents are, they can build the policies, programs, and supports that help them persist, graduate, and enter the workforce. As our movement grows, so too will our nation’s ability to expand economic mobility for families, strengthen communities, and ensure that parents pursuing a college degree have every opportunity to succeed. 

To learn more about Generation Hope’s Policy & Advocacy priorities, please click here.