The Student Parent Center and ParentLink have recently posted an online survey in order to find out if the needs of student parents at MU are being met.

Since its creation in 1974, SPC has provided a daily day care for any undergraduate and graduate students attending MU so the parents can finish their academics during the day and rest assured their children are being looked after.

“I love it,” senior Alana Flowers said. “It’s been great to know that my daughter is being looked after.”

The children, ages six months to five years, are looked after by multiple certified teachers and are both entertained and educated while the parents are able to finish their studies at MU.

The center isn’t perfect, those involved said. It’s currently located off campus on Providence in University Village, taking up the ground floor of one apartment complex.

Director Julie Shea said she feels expansion needs to happen.

“The numbers just don’t add up,” she said. “Given that the national average of student parents and the number of Pell Grants given out every year from the university, there should be more parents coming in than what we get. Also we’ve constantly had a waiting list of over 50 children, so there certainly is a demand here at MU.”

The mismatched data has convinced ParentLink, SPC’s mother organization, to put out a survey on [its website](http://education.missouri.edu/orgs/parentlink/) in order to see how many student parents there actually are at the university and to determine if their needs are being met in terms of child care and parenting education.

The survey includes questions regarding the state of family affairs as well as how much aid ParentLink is actually giving.

“We are hoping to learn what (the student parents) need and serve them, creating a balance between their education and family life,” ParentLink Director Carol Mertensmeyer said.

If there is a large turnout in the survey, ParentLink can take the data to the Family Friendly Task Force and ask for more funding for groups like SPC.

“I would love to expand,” Shea said. “We’ve had a deficit at the end of every year that the Student Union ends up having to pay. If the survey comes back showing that we need to do more, we can justify asking for more funding.”

But if the survey comes back indicating there isn’t a need for programs aiding student parents, programs like SPC could face an uncertain future. If the Family Friendly Task Force is not convinced, Shea said SPC might need to increase the payment from the parents or eventually end the program.