Federal Financing Strategies

There are several federal programs that can support early childhood educators who choose to pursue higher education.¹ Need-based Pell grants offer some support to those whose families earn less than $50,000 a year, with those earning less than $20,000 a year likely to receive the maximum grant amount. But Pell grants can only be used for 12 semesters of higher education, and the maximum Pell award during the 2016–2017 school year was just $5,815—likely too low to cover full costs.² Pell recipients are also required to take at least six credits per semester, which could serve as a major barrier for early educators who must maintain their full-time teaching position while completing college credit.³

If an early educator decides to take out federal loans, she may be eligible for an income-based repayment plan, which caps monthly payments at a reasonable share of income and forgives any outstanding balance after a certain number of years of work. In particular, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program forgives the remaining balance of direct loans after students have made 10 years’ worth of on-time payments under a qualifying, income-based payment plan while working full-time for a qualified employer.⁴ However, it is risky for early childhood educators to rely on loans while wages remain so low, which makes paying off loans—even with assistance—challenging. As mentioned earlier, ideally, the incumbent early education workforce would bear no cost for increasing its qualifications, as per the National Academy of Sciences’ recommendation.