Make child care more affordable

We hear a lot about how hard it is for families to afford a college education for their children. But you don't often hear that preschool education can be just as expensive.

In DuPage County, the average cost of care for a 3-year-old child to attend a child-care center is over $9,000 per year. The cost of many child-care centers is actually higher than tuition and fees to a state college, but unlike saving up for college, you don't have 18 years to save up child care. If parents didn't qualify for the Illinois Child Care Assistance Program, there would be no way for them to keep working. Even with child-care assistance, parent co-payments still take up more than 10 percent of their income.

If we want parents to have good jobs, and children to grow up successful, we need to make child-care more affordable for working families by revising the current co-payment scale in Illinois.

Jennifer Borgognoni Community Services

Manager

YWCA Child Care

Resource and Referral

Glen Ellyn