By Madeline de Figueiredo, Daily Yonder
Major changes to a federal childcare grant program have forced student parents across the country to scramble for care in the middle of the academic year.
The disruption has been felt by rural student parents acutely, where childcare options are already limited, and losing access may push students to pause, or leave, their studies.
More than a quarter of undergraduate students nationwide are raising children, and childcare shortages are disproportionately severe in rural communities, where fewer providers, long waitlists, and higher costs create significant barriers to enrollment and retention in higher education.
Launched in 1998, the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program is a federal grant designed to support low-income student parents by subsidizing childcare and providing wraparound services such as academic support and family resources. Applications to renew existing grants or create new ones are currently on hold as Congress has yet to reauthorize the program.
One of those schools affected is the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. The university’s CCAMPIS grant was up for renewal in 2025, but with applications closed, the campus children’s center and many student parents are facing an uncertain future.
“Right now, we’re still in our budget process for the next fiscal year, but we’re really taking a hard look at whether, without CCAMPIS dollars, we’ll be able to keep all the classrooms open and running to offer families more care,” said UW–Whitewater Children’s Center director Chelsea Newman.
“Portions of the grant were helping pay the salaries of some of the teachers in the classroom. With that going away, we have to figure out how to sustain it and cover the cost of those salaries as well as some of the supplies needed for the classroom space.”
One UW–Whitewater student parent, Maddie Sweetman, a mother of two studying English, said childcare costs for some families in her community can exceed a monthly mortgage payment. For her own family, CCAMPIS provided a crucial pathway to affordable care on the days she was in class.
When one of her children transitioned to public kindergarten, Sweetman increased her work hours and took on a heavier course load. But cuts to CCAMPIS meant that the cost of childcare for her remaining child became roughly equal to what she had previously paid for care for both children under the program.
“With CCAMPIS being cut, all of a sudden the cost increased by about $2,000 for the semester, which is still less than average childcare costs,” Sweetman said. “But we’re not making a lot of money, so it’s still a large chunk.”
These effects are being felt across campus.
“This is impacting everyone who is a student who has children at the center,” Sweetman said.
CCAMPIS not only offers subsidies for childcare, but also wraparound services.
Newman said the CCAMPIS grant allowed UW-Whitewater to think creatively about how to support student families who were not directly using campus childcare services. With the funding, the program provided a variety of supports for student parents, including parenting books, “busy bags” to occupy children during office hours or meetings with faculty, school supplies, diapers, free cap-and-gown rentals, and family-friendly study rooms in the campus library.
Ann Reynolds, a former student parent herself and now the coordinator of student parent supports at Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner, Massachusetts, saw firsthand the value of the wraparound services on campus.
“What’s beautiful about CCAMPIS is the wraparound support,” Reynolds said. “You’re there on the other end of the phone. If they have a flat tire on the way to school, you’re there. You advocate for them with their professors when needed, or more often, you advocate with the college to connect them to other campus services that support student parents. You’re really guiding student parents to advocate for themselves.”
Unable to renew the college’s CCAMPIS funding due to the closed application, Reynolds knew the stakes of her rural student parents losing access to childcare.
“We are in an area that is rather barren when it comes to childcare. We do have quality options, including center-based facilities not only on campus but also in surrounding rural areas. However, they fill up quickly,” Reynolds said. “For these rural areas, the biggest barriers are access to childcare and, obviously, affordability.”
She was able to secure funding through a local foundation to offer continued subsidies to the student parents already in the program, but there is no additional funding to take on incoming student parents.
“We haven’t pulled the rug out from underneath our students,” Reynolds said. “I was fortunate that we could do that because of our generous foundation support, but I don’t know what I would have done if I’d had to have taken the rug from underneath them.”
Newman is facing the same worries. She said the financial support had a significant effect on student parents, many of whom expressed overwhelming gratitude.
Newman said the CCAMPIS funding eased financial strain on families, allowing some students to spend more time at home rather than working additional hours, while others were able to access childcare that made it possible to work, remain enrolled, and succeed academically.
“Not receiving CCAMPIS funding will create more hardship and more stress. It will probably make it more difficult for [student parents] to continue going to school and getting their degree,” Newman said. “Without the funds, it’s gonnaput more stress on the families, for sure, just on all fronts.”
With reauthorization stalled in Congress, Reynolds hopes the potential of student parents can still shape the program’s path forward.
“It’s just a no-brainer, “ Reynolds said. “Once you support student parents, they’re going to graduate quicker and with higher GPAs than their non-parenting peers, and they do so because they have little ones in their lives and family in their lives that they want to make a difference for.”
This story was originally published in the Daily Yonder. For more rural reporting and small-town stories visit dailyyonder.com.
