March 02, 2018

Duckworth Leads Senators in Calling for New Investments in On-Campus Child Care

 

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and 13 of her fellow Senators wrote to Chairman Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA) of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies to request significant new funding for the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) Program in the final FY2018 Omnibus Appropriations bill currently being negotiated. The CCAMPIS Program makes it easier for college students with children of their own to afford and access child care programs, and given that negotiators made a commitment to devote an additional $2 billion for the next two fiscal years towards “student-centered programs that aid college completion and affordability” as part of the recent government funding agreement, the Senators believe CCAMPIS should receive a sizable portion of that funding.

"This new investment provides a historic opportunity to address some of the vast demand for on-campus child care from millions of students who are parents,” wrote the Senators. “Student parents experience the tremendous pressure of college costs for both themselves and their families and struggle to pay for child care services on top of tuition, fees, food, rent, books, supplies, transportation, and other costs.”

Senators Duckworth, Murray, Gillibrand, Casey and Durbin introduced legislation on August 1, 2017 to expand the program to help even more student parents manage the steep costs of child care. Access to affordable on-campus child care services has dropped dramatically since 2003 for the 1 in 4 college students who are also parents – a number that has grown 30 percent since 2004.

In addition to Duckworth, today’s letter was signed by U.S. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Bob Casey (D-PA), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Doug Jones (D-AL), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH).

The full text of the letter is copied below.

February 28, 2018

The Honorable Roy Blunt
Chairman
Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on
Labor, Health and Human Services,
Education, and Related Agencies
Washington, D.C. 20510
The Honorable Patty Murray
Ranking Member
Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on
Labor, Health and Human Services,
Education, and Related Agencies
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Chairman Blunt and Ranking Member Murray:

As you work to finalize the Fiscal Year 2018 appropriations bill, we request that you provide significant new funding for the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program. The CCAMPIS program helps to meet the urgent needs of student parents enrolled in higher education who are working to attain a college degree or workforce training to provide economic security for themselves and for their children.

Within the recent agreement to raise overall spending caps was a commitment to invest an additional $2 billion in each of the next two fiscal years on “student-centered programs that aid college completion and affordability.” This new investment provides a historic opportunity to address some of the vast demand for on-campus child care from millions of students who are parents. Student parents experience the tremendous pressure of college costs for both themselves and their families and struggle to pay for child care services on top of tuition, fees, food, rent, books, supplies, transportation, and other costs.

To help address these challenges, the CCAMPIS program supports campus-based child care programs primarily serving the needs of low-income students. Approximately 1.4 million Pell Grant recipients today have with children between the ages of 0 and 5, and 4.8 million students in higher education have dependent children. Among single parents with children, 88 percent have incomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. Unfortunately, most students are not able to access existing child care programs, their options are often unaffordable, and child care centers located on campus are rare or often have substantial wait lists. Additionally, the current levels of funding for CCAMPIS are only able to meet a tiny fraction of student demand for accessible and quality on-campus child care.

We hope that you will consider a significant increase to the CCAMPIS program as part of the FY 2018 appropriations measure and use a sizeable portion of the new $2 billion in college affordability funding to help meet the needs of student parents, but without reducing funding for other critical higher education programs. The Administration has also recently proposed to increase CCAMPIS funding to $50 million for FY 2018, and we ask that you substantially exceed this amount. Providing adequate child care resources to student parents will help to improve both college completion and affordability. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Tammy Duckworth