UNC Greensboro Provides Free Childcare for Student-Parents

Jennifer Aikey, a Ph.D. music student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG), was in shock after a call with the university’s childcare center — her 3-year-old daughter, Leah, could be enrolled in the center for free.

Aikey and her family were still transitioning from her job as a middle school orchestra teacher in Atlanta and her husband’s seasonal job as a tax preparer. It was December, and tax season was fast approaching, so her husband couldn’t watch Leah forever.

Childcare would be expensive following their move to North Carolina. In Atlanta, the family caught a steal by paying $8,000-$10,000 per year at a neighborhood daycare, but Aikey expected to spend more now since her cousin paid around triple that for childcare in North Carolina.

Aikey said that, as a teacher, she didn’t make enough money to be comfortable but made too much to qualify for financial assistance. So between attending classes at UNCG and operating on one income while her husband sought a permanent job, finding an affordable daycare was nearly impossible.

Then, Aikey heard about UNCG’s Child Care Education Program (CCEP) from a few professors who had children in the program.

So she applied for the program, which had just received a $224,102 Access to Child Care Enhances Student Success (ACCESS) research grant in 2023 to fund free childcare for student-parents for the next four years.

Aikey said the program staff told her she just had to apply for the childcare waiver with the county. She didn’t believe them at first.

I was in shock for a while, but once the shock wore off, I just bawled because it’s just like this is changing everything. I mean, what an incredible opportunity and blessing this has been just all the way around, Aikey told BestColleges.

College students with children, especially those in single-income families, face costs for higher education and childcare that can seem financially overwhelming. Care.com’s 2024 Cost of Care Report says parents can sometimes spend over $18,000 a year on childcare.

A First Five Years Fund report found that single-income families spend about 36% of their income on childcare. And for student-parents, that expense makes the out-of-pocket cost of college 2-5 times more than for students without children.

Student-parents are also less likely to finish their degrees due to a lack of affordable childcare. According to a 2022 Education Trust report, a student-parent would need to work a minimum wage job for 54 hours a week for over 50 weeks to cover public college tuition costs and center-based childcare costs.

That’s where CCEP steps in.

UNCG began CCEP in 1950 for faculty and staff with children and the Greensboro community with a sliding fee scale to ensure everyone could afford childcare. When Christie Tongier arrived as CCEP director two years ago, she realized that even the sliding scale was a severe barrier for student-parents.

So, the university talked with other schools, searched for grants, and found and won the ACCESS research grant in 2023 to fund free childcare access for the next four years.

We’re really excited to actually finally welcome student-parents into the community at CCEP because they’re people that we should be serving, and we just hadn’t been able to before, Tongier told BestColleges.

The ACCESS grant focuses on enrolling single-parent, Pell Grant-eligible students, but the CCEP team encourages all student-parents to apply.

CCEP enrolls up to 86 children from 3 months old to 5 years old in three licensed spaces. As of April, CCEP has five children of student-parents enrolled and expects that number to grow to 12 in fall 2024 and then 18 the following year — about 20% of CCEP’s available seats.

The importance of going to college as a student is challenging and time-consuming, but going as a parent adds many different layers of challenge to academic success to completing through graduation, Tongier said.

Aikey knows a lot of people who had to take years off from school to care for their children. She said parents could complete their education sooner if they had more resources since parents traditionally deal with more expenses like health insurance, a mortgage, and car insurance.

Tongier said CCEP will collect data on how the grant impacts graduation rates and academic success to send back to the U.S. Department of Education and to implement changes at CCEP.

Since the grant only funds CCEP’s Project ACCESS for four years, CCEP will look for other ways to keep the program alive and reapply when the time comes.

On top of childcare, the center’s mission is to be a multifaceted research center where any student can be involved.

As an educator and self-proclaimed research nerd, Aikey is excited that Leah gets to be part of it since there’s so much human development to discover. Leah loves working with the student teachers, her mom said, and always sees the same three teachers who can plan for Leah as she grows in the program.

Tongier said that CCEP regularly hosts early childhood majors, birth-to-kindergarten licensees, and other child education-related majors as work-study employees, student employees, and volunteers.

However, any student can apply to work or volunteer at CCEP. Students from other majors like social work and psychology apply to fill volunteer and practicum hours.

CCEP also partners with departments like kinesiology and a long-term child nutrition project with the nursing program.

Students from UNCG’s Beyond Academics, a program for students with developmental variations, are also welcome to complete practicum requirements at CCEP. The Beyond Academics program gives students with developmental variations a chance to earn a certificate in place of a four-year degree.

CCEP is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), which Tongier says shows in its hiring practices and enrollment.

We look to make sure that everybody in our classrooms can see somebody who shares something in common with them culturally, ethnically, age- and ability-wise, Tongier said.

And we create classrooms that way. We also hire to make sure that people are, everybody in the classroom can see representation at some point.

CCEP has an open-door policy for parents. Aikey is welcome anytime to come in and read a book, sing, cook, or watch Leah through an observation room.

Leah will get upset if she sees Mommy and Mommy’s not in there, or Mommy has to go away, Aikey said. But it is nice that I can go into the observation room and kind of sneak in there. She doesn’t see me because it’s a one-sided glass, and I can hear and see everything that’s going on.

Aikey said Leah was meeting all her developmental milestones before enrolling in CCEP but has blossomed ever since starting. She says long, complete sentences, is very descriptive, and can socially and emotionally manage her feelings.

So the other day, she got a little frustrated and had these little number cards everywhere, all over the floor, Aikey recalled. And she went and sat down on the couch and said, I just need a minute, and I need to clean up, and I need to calm down. And so I was just like, That’s incredible.

Leah hears all those things from her teachers at school. It’s results like this that ease parents’ worries — not only is the childcare free, but it’s also quality care.

This has been life-changing for us, really and truly, in every sense of the word. I don’t have to worry about where my daughter is during the day. My husband is able to look for jobs right now, and he is applying, and he is out there hustling and able to do what he needs to do, too, Aikey said.

And it wouldn’t be possible without CCEP. So I’m just really grateful, and it’s such an incredible program. I’m just so fortunate.