Sacramento Head Start Alumni Association

Negative Effects of TANF on College Enrollment

Jul 23, 2002

Do we encourage higher education for everyone but welfare-to-work mothers? This National Urban League report documents how, by not counting college as a "work" activity, welfare policies from the 1996 federal law raised the barriers to college for young low-wage mothers. In the two years after welfare reform passed, more low-income women sought a college education, but the percentage of welfare-to-work mothers seeking college dropped, especially in those states with rigid "work first" policies.
http://www.nul.org/tanf/