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I took a year out of school to deal with financial issues. They told me then that if I withdrew completly, the odds were 90% I'd never come back. I'm one of the few who did. Of course I had a full paid scholarship waiting for me and the school arranged for a year long co-op job, which were huge plusses towards helping me go back.
If she does not go now, she will most likely never go. She has a baby to think about now and that baby's future. This isn't about doing what is easy.
The school has an ulterior motive to say that. They want your tuition money now...not later! I don't have kids; but I dropped out of college and came back 8 years later. In the department where I work (education...at a public state university)...there are quite a few students who are in the same boat (in their late 20s early 30s...back in college).
Also working in a university I see how many people have to drop out AND lose their money because of bad planning and not taking family issues into consideration. We have not 1 but 2 pregnant women who were slated to do an internship for credit over the summer and dropped out. But they still had to pay for the credits.
Only these people know how much they can handle; and it is ultimately their call. I just call it as I see it...day in and day out.
I had a good friend in college who was pregnant. She had her (full term) baby a week after finals in the Spring.
She carried her own books, trudged up and down stairs, argued with the professors (Lol). What struck me about her was that she was both physically and mentally strong. She also got great grades. I admired her enormously. I always figure where there's a will there's a way.
Congratulations on the new addition to your family. Of course you would like to see her continue/begin college life as normal, interacting with profs., friends, etc. The reality, however, is that she is not your normal, typical college freshman, and will unfortunately, need some modifications to her college experience, seeing as she has a newborn. Online courses for the first year sound like a good idea, followed by regular courses the next year, once the baby is not a newborn. Good luck.
What she should have done was worry about getting through college, get established in her career, and THEN worry about having kids.
Denial-It's not a river in Egypt!
That would have been the ideal situation, however, this is not where she's at right now, so the best advice would be advice geared toward her current situation--not would have/could have/should have.
Obviously it would have made her life far, far easier if she were not having a baby now, but there are also some advantages; while I still think she should go to school now (and not take time off), and try to incorporate at least a few on-campus classes, she has the support of her mother (in terms of daycare, etc.), and assuming she's not working FT and going to school FT she'll enjoy having a more flexible schedule that can be more easily worked around her baby's needs than she would if trying to balance a FT regular job with a new baby. I can't remember the statistics right now, but haven't there also been some studies showing that for some women having a baby at a younger age is actually a good thing? There's nothing like having a child to support to provide a more focused sense of motivation and encourage thoughtful planning for the future, career-wise and otherwise, and when she graduates she'll be entering the job market with a child in preschool and soon to go into kindergarten. Many of her coworkers will be interrupting their careers to have children (she might too to have any future children, off course) while she'll have that behind her. She sounds like a reasonable and smart woman, obviously has a supportive mother, and while it's not going to be easy going, it can still work out fine.
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