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It’s estimated that one-third of U.S. graduate students aren’t just spending their days going to class, researching, studying, or teaching — they’re also parenting. Unfortunately, while parent and non-parent students get roughly equal grades, people with kids are less likely than their childless peers to actually complete their degrees.
To be sure, whether someone is able to complete a degree depends on a host of factors, some of which are in the student’s control and some of which aren’t. But we wanted to understand which states present the best shot for parenting graduate students to be able balance school and parenthood.
So we examined all 50 states and the District of Columbia across economic, educational, and other factors to determine which are the best (and worst) for graduate students with families.
A few key findings:
- The Northeast dominates: Seven of the top 10 states are in the Northeast, while Rhode Island, Delaware, and New York comprise the top three.
- Economic affordability doesn’t always align with overall success: Mississippi ranks first in economic factors thanks to low childcare costs and cost of living, but it struggles with high debt-to-income ratios and low educational attainment.
- Education matters: D.C., Massachusetts and Vermont lead in educational factors like graduate degree attainment, while high student-to-teacher ratios hurt states like Nevada and Utah.
- Safety and family-friendly policies are pivotal: Rhode Island and Vermont excel in crime rates and parental leave laws, while Missouri and South Carolina struggle due to high crime and nonexistent leave mandates.
Overall Ranking
Across our nine ranking factors, Rhode Island ended up with the highest overall score, with nearby Delaware not far behind and regional neighbor New York rounding out the top three. Seven of the top 10 states are in the Northeast, while two (Delaware and D.C.) are in the South, and one (Hawaii) is in the West. Minnesota is the highest-ranked Midwestern state.
Rhode Island’s position at the top of the list came down to two main areas where it excelled: educational factors and factors like low crime rates and parental leave laws. However, Rhode Island also has one of the highest childcare costs, so it wasn’t a winner in every single category.
At the other end of the ranking is Nevada, which had the lowest overall score and did not rank in the top 25 across any of the three segments we analyzed, including economic, educational, and other factors. Other low-scoring states include South Carolina and Utah, which round out the bottom three.
What we considered:
Economic Factors
- Debt vs. income
- Cost of living
- Cost of childcare
Educational Factors
- Student loan debt
- Student-to-teacher ratio in public schools
- Educational attainment
Family-Friendly Factors
- Crime rates
- Pediatrician employment
- Paid parental leave
Read more about how we used these factors in the full methodology section at the bottom of the page.
Economic Factors
To compare states across economic factors, we looked at things like debt, income, the cost of living, and the cost of childcare.
Overall winner Rhode Island didn’t perform well in this category due largely to its high cost of childcare, though it’s important to note the factor we used there was in-home care for a toddler, so depending on each family situation, the state may be better (or worse).
Generally, economic factors tended to favor lower-income states like Mississippi, which ranked first overall in the category due mostly to a low cost of living and low childcare costs; but that state also has the highest ratio of student loan debt to household income.
Educational Factors
We considered education-related factors having to do with higher education as well as lower levels of education, including the average student loan debt, the student-to-teacher ratio in public elementary and secondary schools, and the percentage of post college-age adults with a graduate or professional degree.
D.C. had the highest overall score among the three educational categories we considered, followed by Massachusetts and Vermont. Overall leader Rhode Island ranked ninth in this category. Nevada ranked last overall in this category due in large part to having the highest student-to-teacher ratio in public schools with a ratio that’s about two-thirds higher than the U.S. rate of 15.2 students to each public school teacher.
Family-Friendly Factors
The choice of where to attend graduate school is unique to each person, but certain X factors may play a role, so in this area we considered crime rates, the availability of pediatricians and whether states guarantee parental leave.
Rhode Island was second overall in this category, placing near the top in each individual segment: it has the nation’s fourth-lowest overall crime rate and the second-highest employment level for pediatricians, and it’s one of only 19 states to mandate some degree of parental leave, ensuring at least six weeks.
Missouri had the lowest overall score in this category due to not guaranteeing parental leave and having one of the lowest rates of employment of pediatricians, two factors that can be especially challenging for parents with young children.
Methodology
Across the nine categories we used for this analysis, we compared each state’s measure against the national average or rate, assigning a point value based on how much higher or lower the state scored compared to the average. Those point values were then totalled to create the overall ranking.
Here is a more detailed explanation of the data we used, as well as the sources:
- Childcare cost: Average annual cost of in-home childcare for a toddler as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor. Data for Colorado, the District of Columbia, Indiana and New Mexico was unavailable, so regional averages were imputed for those states.
- Cost of living: Cost of Living index published by the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center, which maintains a running estimate of the cost of living per state, derived from city and metro area averages in each state. The most recent publication was for Q3 2024.
- Crime rates: The number of offenses known to law enforcement per 100,000 residents in 2023, reported by the FBI.
- Debt to income: Outstanding student loan debt per borrower, as reported by Federal Student Aid, an office of the U.S. Department of Education, as a percentage of average income per household with earnings in the past 12 months, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
- Educational attainment: The percentage of adults 25 and older with graduate or professional degrees, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
- Paid family leave: A number of states have enacted legislation guaranteeing parents time off work for things like parental leave, family caregiving and personal medical leave. For the purposes of this research, we compared states based on how much leave is required; for states that don’t have these policies (which is a majority), their value in the category was zero. Information for this category came from the Bipartisan Policy Center.
- Pediatricians: The number of pediatricians per 1,000 jobs as reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Data for DC, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada, North Dakota and Oklahoma was unavailable, so regional averages were imputed.
- Student-to-teacher ratio: Number of public school students enrolled per teacher in the 2022-23 school year, reported by the National Education Association.
- Student loan debt: The total outstanding student loan debt per borrower, as reported by Federal Student Aid, an office of the U.S. Department of Education.
