Doctoral Dissertation Research: Women Pursuing Higher Education After the 1996 Welfare Reform

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Doctoral Dissertation Research: Women Pursuing Higher Education After the 1996 Welfare ReformPrincipal Investigator: Karen CampbellCo-Principal Investigator: Sheila KatzVanderbilt UniversitySweeping changes to the national welfare system prioritized "work first" policies and decreased educational opportunities for mothers on welfare. The purpose of this study is to understand why some mothers still pursue education while on welfare as a route out of poverty although the opportunity for education decreased dramatically after welfare reform. The research questions this study will answer are (a) why do single mothers on TANF pursue higher educational programs?; (b) what are their narratives for choosing the higher educational route?; and (c) do the narratives of single mothers involved in an advocacy organization differ from those who are not? I will conduct interviews and focus groups with mothers on welfare who are currently enrolled or who have recently completed higher educational programs and a subset of this group who are involved with a specialized welfare and education advocacy organization in the San Francisco Bay Area. The broader impacts of this study are that it can contribute to the national welfare reform debate by suggesting how welfare mothers might fare if education and job training programs were expanded. It can also inform the debate at the state level in California or in other states that are considering expanding education and job training programs by suggesting state level policies and resources that help or impede low-income women's progress in education and job training programs and in the local labor markets.