Columbia Daily Spectator | 04/26/2012
Meagan Bond, a School of Social Work student and the mother of a three-year-old, could buy a small island with her school loans. Besides tuition, Bond has borrowed $10,000 in loans to pay for the expenses of raising her son and sending him to a Brooklyn child care center because Columbia offers no equivalent. With her parenting duties taking up so much of her time, she says she can only retain half of what she learns in her classes.
“It’s like going on a holiday to the Bahamas and it rains for a whole week,” Bond said of the reality of her investment. “That’s what it kind of feels like, being a parent at Columbia.”
It’s not all bad news for students like Bond who pull double duty as parents. To help alleviate the financial burden of raising a child, Carlos Alonso, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, announced Tuesday that Ph.D. and D.M.A. candidates will be eligible for $1,000 subsidies toward child care starting in the fall of 2012.
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Naomi Cohen | journalist 