Introduction

The United States is in the midst of an unrelenting child care crisis, marked by inadequate supply and high costs, especially for families in rural communities and among historically underserved populations. In 38 states, child care now costs more than college tuition,¹ and in 49 states, more than average annual rent.² For student parents, particularly those in community colleges, this crisis threatens their ability to stay enrolled and complete a degree.

Parenting students make up a significant share of college students, about one in five undergraduates, with half raising at least one child under age six.³ These students are just as academically capable as their peers without children as evidenced by studies showing parenting students have similar or slightly higher GPAs than their peers,⁴ but they face additional barriers to success, including limited access to affordable, quality, and flexible child care. Balancing coursework, work obligations, long commutes, and caregiving, often during evenings and weekends when centers are closed, can become untenable without support.

A core finding of our child care work with 10 community colleges across the nation⁵ is clear: There is not enough money in the child care system to support a sustainable network of providers, affordable care for parents, and living wages for workers. Despite the critical role child care plays in supporting student success, colleges struggle to meet the demand. Some offer campus-based care, often held together by multiple funding streams, while others lack the resources to provide any support. The result: Parenting students are frequently left without viable options, jeopardizing their educational and career goals.

We need a universal right to early education and bold public investment to make the system work. Programs like Early Head Start, Head Start, and the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) offer critical support but fall far short of meeting most families’ needs. Just 10 percent of eligible families are served by Early Head Start,⁶ and just 13 percent of qualifying children under five receive CCDF subsidies.⁷ Meanwhile, nearly half a million middle-class families fall into a lower income quintile each year due to child care costs.⁸

Head Start remains chronically underfunded, with many programs operating on thin margins that have forced some to reduce services or shut down altogether, highlighting the fragility of the current system. In response, states like Vermont and cities like New Orleans and Austin have passed local taxes to expand access to high-quality care.⁹ In the absence of sustained federal investment, more states and municipalities must follow their lead.

Our policy agenda offers short-term strategies to support parenting students now, while acknowledging that broader efforts to build a universal, high-quality system—from better compensation for early childhood educators to subsidy models that reflect the true cost of care—are essential to addressing the child care crisis for all families. Through our engagement with community colleges across the country, we’ve seen what’s effective: on-campus care, strong partnerships, and wraparound support for parenting students. Expanding these solutions requires policy leadership and investment.

Child care access shouldn’t be a barrier to higher education. It’s essential infrastructure, vital not just for student success, but for strengthening families, fueling economic mobility, and building a more inclusive child care system. It’s time to treat it that way.

This agenda is divided into federal and state policy recommendations. Advocates for parenting students and child care can use any of our recommendations to help improve child care access for parenting students. Both the federal and state policy ideas within this document reflect what we learned from student parents, child care practitioners, college staff, and policy and advocacy teams with higher education and child care expertise.

The state recommendations include examples, where relevant, of changes that have helped unlock child care options for parenting students. We have not included examples for the policy suggestions that we have not yet seen enacted in practice.

We aim for this policy agenda to inspire change within the current system of child care to reduce barriers for parenting students, knowing that this work must happen alongside efforts to build universal child care and early education for all families.