As the cost of college tuition has increased dramatically in recent years, so has the cost of childcare. Paying for both at the same time can be a real challenge for the approximately 4.8 million students raising children as they pursue a degree.
Legislation reintroduced in the Senate on Tuesday, the Child Care Access Means Parents in Schools (CCAMPIS) Reauthorization Act, would expand an existing federal program geared at helping low-income parents pay for childcare while in college. CCAMPIS provides grants to schools, which in turn support childcare services for thousands of student parents who qualify for Pell grants. The program reaches nearly 5,000 students each year.
“As the costs of college and child care continue to climb, too many students and families are struggling to make ends meet,” said Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.), one of five senators who reintroduced the bill in the Senate on Tuesday.
Representatives Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) and Don Young (R-Alaska) reintroduced similar legislation in the House last week.
The Trump administration proposed cutting CCAMPIS earlier this year in a move to trim education-related spending. Currently, CCAMPIS is funded at $15 million.
Under the CCAMPIS Reauthorization Act, funding would increase to $67 million permanently each year, expanding the program’s reach and impact. It would also require the Department of Education to strengthen its oversight and data collection over the program.
“While each student is different, having better records would allow us to know how CCAMPIS is impacting the growing nontraditional student-parent population and to translate the positive experiences of local program administrators into a national conversation on how to scale up best practices,” Reid Setzer, government affairs director at Young Invincibles, one of several groups advocating for the expansion of CCAMPIS, said in an email.
