Being a parent is a full-time job. Parents who are going to school alongside raising their children are moving mountains to succeed in a system that frequently caters to eighteen-year-olds fresh out of high school. 

The latest featurette from Three Frame Media, the company that brought you Unlikely and First Generation, is about these incredible parent learners. The short film, Raising Dreams, will be premiering next week at the SXSW Edu film festival. Filmmaker Jaye Fenderson wrote this blog post ahead of the premiere, discussing her motivations for the film and how important parent learners are.  

The daughter of a student parent, herself, Fenderson knows the challenges that parents getting their degrees have to overcome. As her mom pursued her bachelor’s degree while Fenderson was in high school, it found her and her younger sister spending time in campus common-areas, waiting for their mother to be finished. Of the time, she said, “It was rare to see other kids our age on campus, so it seemed like our situation and the challenges our family faced were outside the norm.”

The great feats made by this exceptional group of students prove that it is well worth the fight. Parents with degrees, “double their income and their children are more likely to complete a degree themselves.” Parent learners are not a rare breed. In fact, they make up about 25% of today’s college-going population, despite working in a system that often doesn’t factor them in. This is why Three Frame Media in partnership with Imaginable Futures and the Lumina Foundation have made a film that champions their stories. 

There will be a reception as the film premieres at SXSW Edu on Wednesday, March 11 at 4:30 PM. Imaginable Futures will also be discussing their Rise Prize, which gives out one million dollars in awards to organizations innovating to make the lives of student parents better. They will also be toasting the DVD and digital release of Unlikely and highlighting higher ed leaders such as Eloy Ortiz Oakley and David Croom. 

Read the full blog post here.