For Georgia Southern’s student-parents, child care assistance can be hard to come by. There are options available on the Armstrong and Liberty campuses, but other specific forms of aid aren’t as utilized by GS student-parents.

“At the current time we do not have any students with children in our childcare program,” said Marianne Nordahl, Director of the Child Development Center (CDC).

“We are a childcare center…we take care of children from six weeks to four years old. We are licensed by the state. So we provide care and academic education and activities for the children from 7:30 in the morning till 5:30 at night,” said Nordahl.

The center is available to university students, however there is a year-long waitlist for parents to place their children. In addition, there is no financial assistance offered by the CDC to cover the cost of placement.

“But the state of Georgia has a CAPS program, they [student-parents] can fill out a form online and depending on finances or if they’re going to school, the state of Georgia will pay a certain amount of a certain percentage of their care that will come to us through the state of Georgia as a CAPS scholarship. And then the parents will pay a certain amount as well,” said Nordahl.

The CAPS program also has certain criteria that need to be met in order to be eligible for those child care assistance funds. According to Nordahl, you need to be either employed or a full-time student, but criteria may vary on a case by case basis. Georgia Southern though, offers no financial aid exclusively for student-parents.

“Not their demographic specifically. Not through Georgia Southern, but there are potential scholarships,” according to Blake Mercer, Associate Director of Public Relations for the Office of Financial Aid.

The scholarships that Mercer referenced are available through Scholarship Universe, a program utilized by Georgia Southern which matches students to specific scholarships based on their answers to specific questions.

“The biggest thing we encourage is for someone to fill out their FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid…typically they are more eligible for additional funding through the Pell grant…There are FAFSA completion events, we do FAFSA Fridays on campus. So if you wanted to get help with [the FAFSA] you can come here and we can actually help you,” said Mercer.

Any questions or concerns regarding financial aid, can be sent to finaid@georgiasouthern.edu or 912-478-5413.