Beyond Tuition: Funding for Campus Based Child Care for Student Parents

Though child care is a significant challenge for student parents, colleges often struggle to help them meet this need on campus, in large part because child care centers operate with thin margins. In the past two decades, the share of colleges offering care on campus has declined. By 2022 - in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, only 38 percent of public institutions and 7 percent of private non-profit institutions offered child care on campus.

Further, child care on campus is no guarantee that spots are available or affordable for the 1 in 5 undergraduates who are parents. Centers often serve children of faculty, staff, and community members, and if tuition isn’t set at affordable rates, care on campus can be out of reach for student parents. But access to child care on campus is linked to greater persistence and graduation rates for student parents, so figuring out how to finance care on campus is a worthwhile endeavour for colleges that want to support student parents on the path to degree completion.

In our research on child care at community colleges, we talked to five colleges about barriers to offering services for student parents. The challenges of financing child care centers was a core theme that we heard. An additional five colleges that we interviewed about their robust services for student parents, including child care on campus, echoed the challenges they have in securing and sustaining funding for their operations.

One college leader, at a campus that shut down its child care center years ago, told us “we were essentially subsidizing and losing money for the community. We didn’t have students [use the center].” In other words, the campus was losing money on child care to non-college affiliated community members. She elaborated that student parents typically couldn’t afford to pay the center’s tuition rates. Meanwhile, the college lost money operating its center and wasn’t able to support student parents’ needs.

Colleges in our cohort commonly named the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) grant as critical for sustainable financing of campus-based child care that student parents can afford. CCAMPIS is a competitive federal grant program that supports colleges in providing low-income student parents with access to quality child care. But with only $75 million appropriated for CCAMPIS in fiscal year 2024, most campuses that want to offer on-site child care have to look elsewhere to fund their operations.

In our research, we found a number of strategies campus centers used to finance their operations or facilities while keeping tuition affordable for student parents.

Funding Sources for Campus-Based Child Care Centers

Below are some of the funding strategies used by colleges in our cohort— which other leaders may want to consider, whether for supporting an existing center or launching a new one. This isn’t an exhaustive list of funding that campus child care centers can tap into, but rather a list of ideas worth exploring.

Institution Budgets

Staff at most colleges in our cohort told us that their center was expected to break even with little financial support from the college. But child care profit margins are tight and public subsidies aren’t meeting needs to ensure child care providers earn a living wage and that families can afford care. If a college wants to prioritize retention and graduation of its student parent population, it’s worth considering whether its budget can support center operations rather than expecting a child care center to break even on its own.

As one child care center director told us, “If I’m expected to break even, I can only serve families who are top earners in the region and can afford full tuition, and that’s not student parents.”

This director spoke of being at a college where leadership understood that in order to serve student parents, the college’s operational budget would have to support the center - in combination with other grant resources and affordable tuition rates. In some cases, colleges situate their child care centers under Auxiliary Services that can help subsidize center operations.

Partnering with Head Start and Early Head Start Programs

More than 1.5 million student parents are enrolled in community colleges, and around half of them have at least one child under age 6. Many student parent families qualify for Head Start, which is why the Kids on Campus initiative was created to help co-locate more Head Start programs at community colleges. Head Start provides families with free access to high-quality early childhood education and other services.

For colleges that don’t have the resources or experience to run a child care center, but want to meet the child care needs of their student parents, partnering with Head Start is a smart option. When colleges have space to lend to a Head Start program, they can help Head Start reduce or eliminate rent costs, allowing them to focus on critical services for student parent families. In turn, colleges can support access to high quality care for some of their student parents via connecting them to Head Start.

The Kids on Campus team provides free technical assistance to prospective community college and Head Start partners. Campuses that want to learn more can reach out to Kids On Campus here.

Child Care and Development Fund Subsidies

The Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) helps families afford child care. The federal program provides funding to states, who then provide subsidies to eligible families with children under 13. States design their subsidy programs within federal guidelines and make a variety of choices about eligibility that can impact how accessible subsidies are to those enrolled in postsecondary education. But in our research, we found that some campus centers didn’t accept their states’ CCDF subsidy, even when the subsidy was available to parents enrolled in postsecondary education.

There are real challenges for child care providers who want to accept CCDF funds. Low reimbursement rates, combined with challenges like payment in arrears, and paperwork burdens can lead child care providers to not accept CCDF subsidies. But for students who qualify in their state, finding a provider who will take the subsidy is critical to accessing care. Campuses with child care centers should explore if and how they can accept state subsidy dollars so that eligible student parents can use them on campus.

States and higher education systems can even partner to make this simpler. The State of New York, for example, allocates a portion of CCDF funds directly to the State University of New York (SUNY) and City University of New York (CUNY) systems to support child care for eligible families on campuses.

Contracts for State Funded Preschool Spots

Some states offer free preschool for all families or families that meet income eligibility criteria. Campuses can explore entering agreements with state programs to offer preschool spots on campus. At one college in our research cohort, a contract for 10 spots at the center on campus helped stabilize revenue for the center and allowed them to prioritize eligible student parent families for those spots.

At another campus we interviewed, reimbursement rates for preschool spots were too low to cover the center’s costs of providing care. But if the priority is serving student parents, contracts with state preschool programs can offset some costs and help colleges lessen the burden of other fundraising they might do to subsidize care for student parents.

College Foundation Support

Some campuses raise funds for child care for student parents through their foundations. For example, Utah Valley University received a large donation to help them construct a child care center that expanded capacity to serve student parents.

College foundations can help support child care on campus by creating and marketing funds that donors can contribute to in support of basic center operating costs, facilities, or subsidies for student parent families.

Bond Financing

We heard from campuses that costs to build or renovate space for use as a child care facility was a major barrier to being able to offer care. Linn Benton Community College in Oregon dealt with this challenge by financing renovations to a building through a bond. They worked to bring a local ballot measure that ultimately allowed them to finance renovations to a building to bring it to current child care center standards.

Work Study

Some campuses hire federal work study students to help in campus child care centers as assistants. This can help offset staffing costs where appropriate, and sometimes allow for Early Childhood Education students to get practical experience in their field of study.

Conclusion

In our work, colleges used a combination of the strategies here for financing their child care operations or facilities to serve student parents. Other options colleges use include student fees to subsidize child care and summer camps to raise additional revenue.

We also heard campus center directors tell us they learn to get creative in finding funding sources thanks to support from networks of other child care providers. Sometimes these are informal networks and sometimes center directors leverage the National Coalition for Campus Children’s Centers (N4C), a membership organization that supports those operating and working in campus-based child care centers.

The funding options listed here aren’t exhaustive or simple solutions to fully funding quality child care on campus, but we hope they help institutional leaders and child care center directors consider ideas to supplement their operations.