There’s a new push to save child care on college campuses

Child care is so expensive for parents in college that it often exceeds the cost of their education. For years, one federal program has been helping lower those costs, until this year when the program has faced cuts under the Trump administration. 

Now, Democratic lawmakers are leading a push to save it. 

House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark and Sen. Tammy Duckworth are reintroducing a bill Thursday to dramatically grow the $80 million Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program, which awards four-year grants to about 260 colleges and universities to offer child care to low-income students, the lawmakers shared exclusively with The 19th. 

Clark has been reintroducing the legislation since 2017, but this year has brought new challenges.  

In his 2026 budget, President Donald Trump called for a total elimination of the program, saying that “subsidizing child care for parents in college is unaffordable and duplicative.” It’s an effort the president has supported since his first term. The House also recommended eliminating the program, and the Senate has suggested maintaining the current level of funding, but a budget has not yet been finalized.

Already, fewer schools are participating this year because the Department of Education decided not to open the application process, so schools that would typically be reapplying for a four-year grant were shut out, experts told The 19th. 

Then in August, the department made an unusual move: It notified 13 other colleges that they would no longer be receiving grant funding to run their child care programs, arguing that some of the recipients were teaching toddlers about gender ideology and the concept of race. The decision is part of the administration’s efforts to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, though advocates said what was being taught were simple concepts to help toddlers, who are beginning to understand race and gender.

The Education Department did not respond to The 19th’s questions about cuts in grant funding, but Ellen Keast, a spokesperson for the department, told The Washington Post that the “Trump administration will not fund programs that are not in the best interest of the American families they are intended to serve.” 

Rescinding more than a dozen grants in the middle of their cycles — impacting schools in California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio and other states— has been destabilizing for those programs, experts told The 19th. Edward Conroy, a senior policy manager on the higher education team at New America, a left-leaning think tank, said that schools relied heavily on CCAMPIS funding to operate and that some will likely be closing their on-campus centers when the money runs dry. That could be as soon as this month. The schools were informed just before Labor Day, when some had already begun their school years. 

“If you’re on a four-year grant cycle, unless something goes really sideways, you’re expecting those funds to continue for the four years,” Conroy said. “It’s very unusual for them to be ended. It’s even more unusual for them to be ended with essentially no warning.” 

Some institutions are appealing, but the future of the federal program is in question. 

Clark argued that this all means it’s “even more reason to continue to push” for her bill. But that effort is also likely to face some opposition in the current political climate because Clark and Duckworth are not only suggesting the program continue operating, they want to raise its budget by more than six times what it is now.

The new price tag: $500 million. 

More than 3 million college undergrads — 1 in 5 — have children, and about half of them have kids under the age of 6. An estimated 75 percent of those students are women, many of them single mothers and often single mothers of color. The largest share of those students are enrolled in community colleges. 

The CCAMPIS program, which was established in 1998, targets those low-income students to help them reach graduation. Overall, student parents are about twice as likely to drop out of college, and only about 8 percent of single mothers who are students reach graduation within six years. 

But in 41 states, the cost of center-based infant care exceeds the cost of in-state college tuition. 

“There is no reasonable way for someone to be a full-time student, work and also afford child care,” said Elliot Haspel, a national child care expert who has written two books on the subject. “The math doesn’t math. It can be back breaking, which is why we need parents to access some kind of subsidy.”

The CCAMPIS program not only supports students (those who qualify for the Pell Grant can access the program), but smaller community colleges that don’t have the discretionary funds to operate their own child care programs. Grantees can either establish their own on-campus centers or partner with local facilities. One study at Monroe Community College in New York analyzing data from 2006 to 2014 found that 71 percent of students who used on-campus child care stayed enrolled from one fall semester to another, compared with 42 percent of student parents who did not use on-campus child care. 

“It really punches above its own weight in terms of what it can do,” Duckworth told The 19th. “Many of these programs are training centers for students who are getting degrees in early childhood education so it’s a real win, win, win, and it’s a relatively cheap program for what it provides.”

But only a small share of the students who need on-campus child care are being covered by the program as it exists now. A report from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that about 11,000 parents were supported by the program in 2018. An earlier report from the Government Accountability Office analyzing program data from 2016 to 2017 found some 4,000 children were on waitlists. And because the funds are offered on a sliding scale to students, some only get a small portion of their child care covered by the program. 

It’s a microcosm of the national child care system: Care is too expensive and too hard to find, and those who can’t afford it or find it have to make difficult decisions around whether to care for their kids or continue to work or study. 

“We are asking parents of young children to foot this incredible bill when we need them and it is in the interest of everyone to help them find and be able to afford child care,” Clark, who represents Massachusetts, told The 19th. “It is not only good for families and good for kids, it is really good for our economy.”

By expanding the program and its funding, Clark and Duckworth are hoping it can be better designed to actually support what students need. On-campus child care options declined 24 percent from 2012 to 2021, according to a report from New America. And though CCAMPIS has been steadily receiving more funding annually, from $15 million in fiscal year 2017 to $75 million in fiscal year 2023, fewer institutions have received grants. 

Advocates believe a $500 million price tag would allow the program to better cover the cost of administering child care, cover more students who need it and take children off waitlists. New America estimates that expansion would cover 100,000 additional students. 

“The $500 million is based on need and what we are seeing from people who would love to access this program but can’t,” Clark said. 

The bill would reauthorize CCAMPIS through 2031 and raise the minimum grant amount in the law’s statute from $30,000 to $75,000  and establish a maximum grant amount: $2 million. It will also require that on-campus child care centers meet either federal or state quality standards, or be accredited by a respected national early childhood accrediting body; grant funds can be used for these quality improvements. 

Clark told The 19th the legislation is also about giving smaller colleges the funding they need to more efficiently stand up the infrastructure to establish on-campus care. A higher minimum grant amount is “going to encourage more colleges, more universities to participate in this,” she added.

In prior years, Clark has had Republican co-leads on the legislation. This year she doesn’t. Still, some Republicans do want to see improvements to the program, including Rep. Nathaniel Moran, from Texas, who has previously proposed legislation to also raise the minimum grant amount and add additional flexibility into the program.

Duckworth said that reintroducing the bill is in some ways about sending a message on priorities, that they are not giving up on improving the program.

“It’s also about getting the word out so colleges in and universities in red districts and red states can speak to their congressmen and their senators and say, ‘Hey, you know what? You should probably sign on to this,” Duckworth said. “There are students everywhere that have children, and they need the help, and so I’m hoping eventually somebody will sign up.”

But the $500 million price tag is likely to be a sticking point at a time when the federal government is looking for areas to cut costs. 

Richard Davis Jr., a policy analyst for higher education at New America, said that while increases are badly needed for the program, “there’s still a real fight ahead to sustain funding.”

For American families, child care is a major line item in family budgets for those with young children, yet the Trump administration has not made the issue a priority despite it being one that most Americans across the political spectrum would like to see the federal government address. 

“Given there is so much talk about a pro-family agenda with the Republican Party, we think there is a really great opportunity for increasing support for children and families in this way,” Davis said.

And, Haspel added, even if the $500 million figure is aspirational for advocates, there is some value in introducing legislation that draws Americans’ attention to efforts that directly address their needs.

“Something like introducing a bill and saying, ‘Hey, we actually want to increase it,’ can help force that conversation,” Haspel said. “Make those who oppose it say why.”