Is Equal Access to the University
of Arkansas Denied Single Parents?
by Katherine Arnoldi
published in Arkansas Gazzette and the Grapevine in the 90's
In 1979 I was graduated from the University
of Arkansas. During my years on campus, I was one of only a few
single parent students. The university was poorly equipped to
assist me and, in fact, seemed determined to place obstacles
in my path.
In 1976, my first year on cam
pus, I was denied financial aid to which I was
entitled and was told that the funds were nonexistent. After
appearing with my Legal Aid lawyer, however, the grant money
was found.
I watched while other students enjoyed inexpensive dorm rooms
and luxurious sorority accommodations, while I waited two years
for what was then called "married student housing."
I watched while huge outlays of money were spent on football
stadiums, coaches, plans for athletic complexes and other predominantly
"boy" things while I accumulated more and more school
loans to pay day care, expensive off-campus housing and grocery
bills.
Now, many years later, I returned to the university on my vacation
to visit old friends and remember pleasant college times. I was
moved to see Old Main, long neglected, now lighting up the night
sky. But, on a tour of the campus, I was appalled that the football
stadium, gargantuan, is twice the size it was in 1980, and that
the athletic complex is larger, it seems, than many academic
buildings. I decided to spend the next day seeing how much other
things had changed on campus.
I called the Infant Development Center only to be told that there
was "no way" I could get my child in by the fall semester.
There would be, I was told, at least a one year waiting list,
and even if I was accepted, the rates were no bargain at $55
a week.
"But I'm a single parent accepted for the fall semester,"
I lied.
"I'm sorry," she said.
I then called the housing department to see how things had changed
there. I learned that a dorm room was available complete with
air conditioning and all the food I could eat.
"Oh, great," I said, and explained that that fit nicely
into my budget, which was small since I was a single parent.
"Oh, no," the voice said, "You can't have a dorm.
What you want is Carlson Terrace."
Not Carlson Terrace, I thought, that dark, depressing total concrete
environment I had waited two years for, from 1976 until 1978
and where I spent the most miserable year of my life. But, yes
this was the very same place with exactly the same waiting list:
two years.
"I'd rather have the dorm," I said.
"You got to be kidding," the voice said.
"But I'm scheduled to begin this fall semester," I
said.
"Sorry," the voice said, "Try off-campus housing."
I called the number she gave me for off-campus housing, but the
number had been changed and a man answered, "Upward Bound."
"What is Upward Bound?" I asked.
"A program to help at-risk high school students attend college."
"Oh," I said, "You mean single parents?"
"No," he said, "We do not help single parents."
No one, it seems, helps single parents.
Or, to be more exact, no one gives single parents a fair chance,
an equal opportunity to education. The unavailability of the
inexpensive dorm room would, I'm sure, contribute to the poverty
of the general population of non-parent or absent parent students,
and, I'm sure, it contributes to the poverty of single parents
in the state of Arkansas.
Why can't several dorm floors be appropriated for single parents
and their children? The dorms have to be safer, cleaner, and
probably even larger that the off-campus housing I found years
ago. Why can't a university that invests in football, that seems
to be able to find lost money when sued, also find the money
for sufficient day care?
If the statistics are true, that 40% of the nation's children
are raised by single parents and that 90% live below poverty
level, then couldn't this discrimination against single parents
achieving equal access to education contribute to their poverty?
I am glad I fought for my rights when I attended the University
of Arkansas. I am glad that I earned my degree because I know
that that degree is what spurred my own daughter to go to college.
Children do what they see, not what they are told. I am glad
that before leaving Fayetteville, I was able to help start the
Single Parent Scholarship Fund and I am proud that I paid back
every penny of my school loan. But these are my personal accomplishments.
Maybe if single parents in masse brought their children into
the dorm rooms, into the classrooms, and into the library, the
university might find it in its heart to divert some of the football
budget to fair housing for single parents and day care facilities
for all single parents who want to make their way out of poverty
and into a more humane, less trivializing future that will give
our children footsteps, not football fields, to step into, out
of and beyond.
College Mom Rates the University of Virginia
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