Sec. 3. Findings
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/bill/118/s/848/is/section-3A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
Congress finds the following: A child’s brain grows at a faster rate between birth and age 3 than at any later point in the child's lifetime. Decades of research shows that children under age 3 that receive quality child care are more likely to have the behavioral, cognitive, and language skills development necessary for success in school, college, and life. According to a 2018 survey, 83 percent of parents with a child under age 5 responded that finding quality, affordable child care was a serious problem in their area.
In 2017, on average, center-based child care for an infant cost 61 percent more than for a preschooler, over $11,000 annually per child, and in 28 States, more than the cost of public college tuition. In the 2015–2016 academic year, approximately 4,300,000 postsecondary education students were raising children while in college, and over half of those students had children preschool-aged or younger. According to a 2016 survey, 95 percent of child care centers at 2-year and 4-year colleges across the United States had a waiting list, with the average list containing 82 children.
Student parents were 20 percent more likely to leave college without a degree than students without children. The Child Care Access Means Parents in School Federal Grant program under subpart 7 of part A of title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 ( 20 U.S.C. 1070e et seq. ) helps over 3,300 students at institutions of higher education afford child care each year, but this program impacts just 0.5 percent of the entire student parent population, and many institutions of higher education do not open their subsidized child care programs to children under age 3.
The share of community colleges and 4-year institutions of higher education with on-campus child care has been in decline. Community colleges saw a 10 percent decrease in the number of campuses with child care between 2002 and 2017. Student parents are more likely to be enrolled at community colleges and minority-serving institutions than other institutions of higher education. Over a quarter of all community college students are parents, and in the 2015–2016 academic year, 40 percent of Black women attending college were parents, 3 times the rate for White male college students.
Community colleges and minority-serving institutions lead the higher education sector in educating infant and toddler child care providers, especially child care providers of color, so they are the optimal actors for driving quality infant and toddler child care access in their regions.
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