The deVeber Institute
for Bioethics and Social Research

Throughout Canada, thousands of young people attend University who are aged 19 to 24. This group is also the largest age cohort of women having abortions. The deVeber Institute is researching the resources available to pregnant and parenting students on university campuses in order to better understand some of the reasons that may be behind this statistical flux. 

Preliminary results reveal that the majority of schools in our country are lacking services. Often the resources are not available, or are not made known to students who need them. Of all Canadian universities, the University of Toronto was the only university to offer all of the following:

1. Pregnancy counselling for adoption and birth options as well as for struggling parents
2. On campus housing for families attending university, with priority to single parents 3. Numerous on-campus day care facilities as well as child co-ops with student discounts and subsidies available
4. A babysitting referral service
5. Loans, bursaries and scholarships specifically for parenting students which are made clear to students
6. Academic leave for a semester
7. Private designated areas for women to breast feed on campus
8. Parenting students are given priority in work study positions
9. On campus food and clothing bank for students
10. Residence services that help students find affordable off campus housing
11. Wheelchair and stroller accessible buildings
12. Flexible class times as well as evening and weekend classes/ distance classes via internet to make courses easy for parenting students

Many other schools offered some of these services but no school has taken parenting students into consideration as much as the University of Toronto. Other universities could learn from the example set by the University of Toronto so that women do not have to make a decision between having an education and having children.