Diapers to diplomas: Child care costs as much as college tuition

Day care in center, university tuition both average over $13,000 in Illinois

KinderCare in Huntley. (Shutterstock)

KinderCare in Huntley. (Shutterstock)

By Ted Cox

An annual national study on the cost of child care finds that day care in a center and college tuition are running neck and neck in Illinois, with both averaging more than $13,000 a year and on the rise.

The Virginia-based Child Care Aware of America released its 13th annual study on “The U.S. and the High Price of Child Care” late last month. Like last year, it found the average cost of day care in a center and college tuition both running more than $13,000, as both inched up from a year ago.

According to the study, the average cost of child care in a center in Illinois was $13,762, up from $13,413. The difference remained exactly the same compared to the average cost of college tuition in the state, which rose to $13,970, up from last year’s $13,621. By comparison, the average annual mortgage payment in Illinois was just under $20,000, at $19,596.

The average cost of day care in a home was $8,616, also up slightly from last year’s $8,442. But that offered little relief for low-income families and single parents.

According to the study, the cost of day care for an infant and a 4-year-old in Illinois was $24,194 in a center, $16,569 at home. On average, a married couple with an infant were spending 14 percent of their household income on day care in a center, 8.8 percent at home, but those figures rose to almost a quarter of household income, 24.7 percent, for two kids in a center, 16.9 percent at home.

Examining the situation faced by single parents and those living on the poverty line shows how dire things are for some Illinois families. A single parent pays on average more than half of all earnings, 51.4 percent, for day care in a center, almost a third, 32.2 percent, at home. With two kids, those figures rise to an unmanageable 90.4 percent in a center, 61.9 percent at home.

And for families living at the poverty line it’s even more impossible, requiring 96.4 percent of household income for two kids at a day-care center, still 66 percent at home.

“When one member of this ecosystem struggles, the entire system flounders,” said Lynette Fraga, executive director of Child Care Aware of America. “Quality, affordable child care should be, and can be made available and accessible to all children in the U.S. — regardless of age, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or geographic location.”

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has followed former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in moving to expand pre-kingergarten programs statewide, but that has left some families in a bind in the transition. Chicago’s South Side Weekly reported Tuesday that the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Catholic Charities would be shutting down three Southwest Side Head Start programs at the end of the month due to lack of funding.

The story reported that Chicago’s “Department of Family and Support Services granted funding to Catholic Charities through the end of November 2019, but the organization was not among the 25 child-care providers selected for a one-time extension, according to the city website.”

According to the report, more than 12.5 million children under the age of 5 are in some form of child care in the United States, about 35 percent of them in child-care centers.