DAY CARE, CAMPUS HOUSING AID OLDER, DIVORCED WOMEN

Author(s):    Tracy Jan, Globe Staff Date: July 24, 2005 Page: E8 Section: Education

Colleges are offering weekend classes, building two-bedroom apartments, and setting up peer support groups to ease the transition for a growing student demographic older, divorced women.

The women, many of whom are working mothers who suddenly became the family's primary breadwinner, are going back to school for their bachelor's degrees in hopes of bringing home bigger paychecks. "One of the things colleges and universities have learned to do is accommodate the woman who is doing the big balancing act," said Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity College, a women's college that serves predominantly nontraditional students in the Washington, D.C., area.

Divorced women made up 8 percent of US undergraduates in 2000, up from 5 percent in 1990, according to the American Council on Education. Most of the women were over 25 years old.

Community colleges around the country run classes in shopping centers, churches, and schools to make their programs more accessible, and more than half provide on-site day care, according to the American Association of Community Colleges.

After divorcing her husband of seven years, Leda Badilla worried about finding a job because of limited English skills. Badilla, 37, had quit high school in Costa Rica when she married her husband and followed him to Boston, where she worked as a seamstress. She earned her GED but didn't consider college because her husband wanted her to stay home with their children.

A social worker connected her to a Roxbury day care, where she was hired as an assistant teacher at $6.85 an hour. Her supervisor urged her to go back to school to study early childhood education and become a lead teacher, a position that pays about $11 an hour. Badilla said she supports her three children on her own . Badilla enrolled part time in the Urban College of Boston, a private two-year school

that caters to single mothers. She hopes to earn her associate's degree by December 2006, then go on to a four-year college.

"You know why I want to progress? Because my ex-husband told me I could be nothing in this life. I told him I would," said Badilla. "I tell him I do it for myself and for my kids because I want to be somebody important."

Four-year colleges such as Smith and Mount Holyoke have long-established programs for women over 24 years old who want to earn bachelor's degrees. In October, Smith will start building apartments for women to live on campus with their children.

Nearly half of the nontraditional students at Mount Holyoke are divorced. Nancy Doherty, 57, attended the college as a freshman in 1965-66 and returned four years ago when her marriage of 26 years began to fall apart. She graduated in May.

"When your marriage is falling apart, you feel like a failure," Doherty said. "I really felt like Mount Holyoke saved me."

Tracy Jan can be reached at tjan@globe.com.

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