AURORA, Colo. – The Community College of Aurora (CCA) has earned national recognition for its work in supporting students who are parents. Generation Hope, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting social and economic mobility through educational success, has awarded CCA the FamilyU Seal.
This national certification is given to higher education institutions and nonprofits that demonstrate exemplary, measurable efforts in supporting parenting students, leading to remarkable outcomes for the institutions, organizations, and the students they serve.
“Receiving the Generation Hope FamilyU Seal Designation is an exciting honor for the Community College of Aurora. Since beginning our services for parenting students in 2021, we have worked intentionally to accomplish such an important milestone. One initiative we are extremely proud of is our Parenting Student Cohort, which has demonstrated a 13% higher retention rate than the average CCA student. We look forward to working with Generation Hope and the cohort colleges throughout the 2024-2027 term to further our practice in transforming parenting student success ,” said Dra. Reyna Anaya, CCA’s Senior Student Affairs Officer and Dean of Student Success.
Generation Hope partners with educational and policy organizations to drive systemic change, providing direct support to teen parents in college, as well as their children, through holistic, two-generation programming.
“The FamilyU Seal represents our dedication to celebrating and supporting those who go above and beyond in assisting student parents,” said Nicole Lynn Lewis, Founder and CEO of Generation Hope. “We are excited to honor these institutions and organizations that are making a tangible difference in the lives of striving families, helping them to succeed academically, achieve economic mobility, and build generational wealth.”
CCA joins several other higher education institutions in receiving the recognition, including Dallas College, Santa Fe Community College, San Antonio College, and Hudson County Community College.
CCA offers many different resources for parenting students beyond the cohort program through the Division of Student Success. These services include a parenting student scholarship, engagement opportunities for parenting students and their families, a children’s activity book centered around the CCA mascot, on-campus chest-feeding locations, basic need resource support and programming such as the annual Fox Family Holiday Tree, and much more.
The FamilyU Seal continues to gain national prominence, recently highlighted by Generation Hope’s recognition as a winner in Fast Company’s 2024 World Changing Ideas Awards. This accolade underscores the significance of our mission and the impact of the FamilyU Seal in advancing social equity within higher education.
Generation Hope’s FamilyU cohort program is a comprehensive, evidence-based, two-year capacity-building initiative designed to improve institutional competencies and enhance student-parent success. Since 2021, over 21 colleges and universities have partnered with Generation Hope through the FamilyU initiative, impacting more than 100,000 student parents. Click HERE for more information about CCA, and click HERE to learn more about the FamilyU Seal.