A New Dropout Risk: Students Responsible for Aging or Sick Relatives
By Emma Whitford
August 7, 2019
Students in a morning public-relations class at California State University at Northridge often rolled in drowsy, with coffee in hand and minutes to spare, but not Andrew Rahal. By that hour, he had prepared breakfast for his grandmother, cleaned the house, and ensured that it was safe before running out the door. Sometimes he was late.
That became a problem. His professor had a strict policy: If you are late three times, your grade drops by one letter. After his second tardy, he explained his situation: Rahal was the primary caregiver for his grandmother, who has Alzheimer’s disease.
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Students in a morning public-relations class at California State University at Northridge often rolled in drowsy, with coffee in hand and minutes to spare, but not Andrew Rahal. By that hour, he had prepared breakfast for his grandmother, cleaned the house, and ensured that it was safe before running out the door. Sometimes he was late.
That became a problem. His professor had a strict policy: If you are late three times, your grade drops by one letter. After his second tardy, he explained his situation: Rahal was the primary caregiver for his grandmother, who has Alzheimer’s disease.
“My professor kind of said, ‘Well, you should have thought of that before signing up for this class,’” Rahal said. He ultimately received a D due to chronic lateness and absences.
When we think of caregivers, we don’t think of the 18-year-old, we don’t think of the 20-year-old.
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Rahal, 27, is one of a growing number of young-adult family caregivers. An AARP report found that, in 2015, about 10 million people age 18 to 34 were providing care for an elderly or disabled loved one. More than a third of those caregivers were younger than 25. Their ranks are growing, thanks to a national caregiver shortage that is expected to intensify as baby boomers age, and families continue to live farther away from their adult children. Insurance typically doesn’t cover long-term care, and most families cannot afford to pay for it.
Advocates say trying to balance college courseloads with caregiving responsibilities puts students at risk of delaying school or dropping out, a risk that’s particularly acute for Hispanic and African-American students, who are far more likely than are white students to become family caregivers, according to the AARP.
It’s also a challenge that affects student wellness. A 2017 study from the University of South Florida found that students who were caregivers exhibited symptoms of depression and anxiety at higher levels than did a control group of students who were not caregivers.
“The data are clear that this experience is very stressful,” said Donna Cohen, a professor emeritus of child and family studies at the University of South Florida and an author of the study. “At this age, you are trying to figure out who you are and what you are good at. Adding this issue of how to be a caregiver … many students do not even know where to go for help with that.”
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Yet the students are often invisible to the institutions that serve them.
Colleges are waking up to the fact that more than a quarter of undergraduates in the United States are 25 or older, and adult-focused programs are on the rise. But while those programs may account for students with familial responsibilities, traditional undergraduate programs do not, said Lisa Schumacher, who studied the experiences of young student caregivers as a graduate student at the University of Iowa’s program in higher education and student affairs. She found that their needs were often overlooked. Of 10 colleges and universities contacted for this article, including the California Community Colleges and City University of New York systems, none had supports in place beyond traditional counseling to assist students who had caregiving responsibilities.
If Grandma called me on the phone, I would stop; the whole world would stop. Some of my friends were not able to understand that.
“When we think of caregivers, we don’t think of the 18-year-old, we don’t think of the 20-year-old,” said Jean Accius, vice president for Independent Living/Long-Term Services and Supports at AARP.
Young caregivers may be less likely to ask for help, and often reluctant to talk about their challenges, such as needing to leave a three-hour seminar early because their grandparent may be sitting in a dirty diaper, or because someone needs to be home at all times to make sure their aunt does not wander outside and get lost.
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Rahal said most of his college friends could not relate to the fact that his first priority was always his grandmother.
“When I would go out with my friends, if Grandma called me on the phone, I would stop; the whole world would stop,” he said. “Some of my friends were not able to understand that.”
A survey by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs found that “many younger caregivers feel that providing care to a loved one has been a sacrifice.” Six in 10 respondents reported having felt they had given up something to provide care, including education, free time, personal life, or social activities.
To better assist student caregivers, said Schumacher, faculty members should move away from what she refers to as “arbitrary institutional ideals” that don’t have a direct impact on student learning, such as strict attendance policies and inflexible deadlines.
Most colleges and universities offer support to students struggling academically or socially, such as tutors, study groups, or on-campus counselors. But the student caregivers who could benefit from those services are often unaware of them, Schumacher said.
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Raising awareness about student caregivers is critical to helping them connect to such resources, she said.
The conversation could start at freshman orientation, when advisers typically address a host of issues that can affect students’ wellness and academic success as they make the transition to higher education, Cohen said. And given the prevalence of symptoms of depression and anxiety among student caregivers, advisers could also train student-support services to ask about family-care responsibilities when talking to students who show such signs, she said.
‘Not Something You Talk About’
Some external resources are growing. Several caregiving sites, including Caring.com, SeniorAdvice.com, and the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, offer scholarships for student caregivers, who often carry a financial burden.
College scholarships helped Aleyna Ray, now 30, get an early-education degree at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Ray became a caregiver when she was 9, providing daily care for her single mother, who has multiple sclerosis.
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She never told her teachers at Dominion High School, in Sterling, Va., very much about it, she recalled. “When you’re a caregiver and you are that young, it’s not something you talk about. It’s something you know you just have to do.”
But she did write about her experience in college-scholarship essays. That, combined with strong grades, earned her enough in scholarships to cover her tuition and expenses — a huge benefit, since her caregiving responsibilities did not end when she went to college. She moved her mother and her young cousin who lived with them to an off-campus apartment so she could continue to be there for them.
Rahal, who left Cal State-Northridge, is now about a year away from finishing his degree at the New School, in New York. While he completed the spring semester there, other family members stepped in to care for his grandmother. Rahal remained present through phone calls, email, and a Google document he created to help organize his grandmother’s care.
He said it had helped that his program at the New School is tailored for adult learners. His professors understand, he said, that “you’re an adult, you have a life, and you have things going on.”
Emma Whitford is a freelance journalist.
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A version of this story was produced by MemoryWell News for the Ages, a news site focused on aging and caregiving issues.