Motherhood and Academia: What Happens When Moms Go Back to School?

We often hear that a mother’s education matters because it helps children. They have better access to resources, more educational opportunities at home, and parents with a stronger ability to navigate schools and other institutions on a child’s behalf. That is true, but it is not the whole story. Mothers are still developing too.

When women return to school in their 30s or 40s, they are often reshaping their identity, confidence, career, family life, and long term goals at the same time as getting another degree. Research suggests that education in adulthood can support autonomy, health, and midlife cognitive functioning, while student mothers also face role conflict, time scarcity, and institutions that still do not make enough room for care (Lövdén et al., 2020; Lynch, 2008; Bogossian, 2021).

About This Review

This page grew out of a small literature review on mothers in higher education, especially women in their 30s and 40s who are balancing school, work, and family life. I looked at research on adult learning, cognitive health, maternal education, and the lived experience of student mothers. What I found was that education can support growth, confidence, and long term well being, but it also often happens under conditions of role conflict, exhaustion, and weak institutional support.

Why I Care

I wanted to explore not just whether maternal education helps children, but what it does to women themselves. One thing that stands out in the research is how often mothers disappear from the conversation. A lot of studies focus on child outcomes, family outcomes, or later life cognition in broad adult populations. Much less attention is given to mothers who are actively trying to study while caring for children, working, and managing everyday family life. My review suggests that mothers in their 30s and 40s who are currently enrolled in higher or adult education are still surprisingly under-studied (Bogossian, 2021; Lynch, 2008).

Meaning is for Mothers, Too

Research suggests that education can support women’s own development across adulthood. It is linked to autonomy, health related behaviours, and broader life opportunities, and some studies suggest that continued learning in adulthood may support cognitive functioning in midlife and later life (Lövdén et al., 2020; Hatch et al., 2007; Jin et al., 2024). Learning does not only matter when we are young. It can still shape the mind and the self in adulthood.

School & Motherhood Collide

At the same time, the research on student mothers is very clear about the cost. Mothers in higher education often describe being pulled between the demands of caregiving and the demands of school. They report stress, lack of time, emotional strain, and the pressure to meet competing expectations of being a “good mother” and a “good student” at once (Lynch, 2008; Bogossian, 2021). These struggles are not only personal struggles, but are also shaped by institutions that often assume someone else is handling the care work.

Benefits Are Real, but Not Equal

The answer cannot be reduced to saying that school is always better. Education can be meaningful and life giving, but it can also be exhausting, expensive, and structurally unequal. Not every mother has the same access to time, childcare, money, family support, or institutional flexibility. The benefits of education are also shaped by race, income, family structure, and policy context. Research in my review shows that even when mothers have similar levels of education, outcomes are not evenly distributed, because discrimination and structural inequality still shape family life and opportunity (Conwell & Doren, 2020; Crosnoe et al., 2021).

What Still Needs Attention

One of the clearest takeaways from my research is that we need more studies focused directly on mothers who are currently students in midlife. Right now, a lot of the evidence is indirect. We have studies on education and cognition in adults generally, and we have smaller qualitative studies on student mothers, but we have much less research that connects mothers’ identity, mental health, relationships, work, and cognitive functioning in the same group over time. Mothers in academia are a population with their own developmental story (Lynch, 2008; Bogossian, 2021; Lövdén et al., 2020).

art by Madeline Donahue

Going back to school as a mother can be deeply meaningful. It can open up new ways of thinking, new forms of confidence, and new possibilities for the future. It can also stretch women to the edge when care work, study, and institutional demands all pile up at once. Any honest conversation about mothers in academia should make room for both. Universities need to start building structures that make student mothers more able to stay, learn, and thrive.

This was a small review, and one shaped in part by my own experience as a mother, but the larger conversation should be expanded to include student parents of all genders.

Share Your Experience

Are you a mother in academia, or a parent who returned to school later in life? I would love to hear about your experience. You can answer as many or as few of these questions as you like, or share something else.

Has being in school changed how you see yourself beyond being a parent?
What has been the hardest part of trying to be both a student and a parent at the same time?
What kinds of support have actually helped you stay in school?
What does your school still not understand about student parents?
What has been most meaningful about returning to school at this stage of life?