As of 2005, there were an estimated 14.7 million single parent women in the U.S. raising approximately 17.8 million children under the age of 18 (ACS, 2005).

43.7% of custodial mothers are divorced or separated and 31% have never married (Grall, 2003).

Only 11% of single parent women are under the age of 25 and less than 3.5% are teenage mothers (ACS, 2005).

37.7% of single parent women headed households live at or below the federal poverty level while the national average is 13% (ACS, 2005).

The median household income for a single parent woman was $27,525 in 2005. The median household income for single parent men was $40,277 (ACS, 2005).

The average annual income for a woman with a master’s degree is roughly the same as the average annual income for a man with a high school diploma (U.S. Census, 2000)

Only 24.9% of single parent women receive full child support payments (Grall, 2003).

22% of a single parent woman’s average monthly pay goes toward childcare costs. This figure nearly doubles for women with more than one child (U.S. House of Representatives, 2000).

The cost of most early childcare arrangements is greater than the average cost of tuition at a four-year university (McGarvey, 2004).

Single parent women with at least a bachelor’s degree are 5 times less likely to be in poverty (ACS, 2005).

The national average for people with at least a bachelor’s degree is 27.2%. For single parent women that number is 13.5% (Grall, 2003 and ACS, 2005).

Of the single parent women who enter college as single parents, only 4.6% will graduate with at least a bachelor’s degree within 6 years. Single parent women who enter college and do not complete a bachelor’s within 6 years are not unable to obtain a degree for lack of initiative or desire. Barriers to accessing education for these women are financial in nature (e.g. lack of funds for tuition, book, housing, and childcare) (NCES, 2002).

The schooling of mothers is strongly associated with the health and education of their children. Children of former welfare recipients attest that seeing their mother go to college changed their attitude towards higher education (Leibowitz, 1975).

The benefits of education for single parent women are not only economic but also psychological. Education promotes women's self-esteem, self-reliance, independence, security, organizational ability, and orientation toward the future (Pandey, et al, 2000).