Introduction

Student-parents face unique postsecondary persistence and completion challenges as they balance raising children with the demands of coursework and possibly employment. To help low-income student-parents earn degrees and credentials, the federal government provides Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) grants to institutions of higher educations (IHEs). CCAMPIS grants support or establish campus-based child care services that primarily serve the needs of low-income students. CCAMPIS was first funded in FY1999 after enactment of the Higher Education Amendments of 1998 (P.L. 105-244).¹

CCAMPIS grants are authorized by Title IV, Part A, Subpart 7 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA; P.L. 89-329, as amended). Grants may be used for before- or after-school services, and low-income student-parents who benefit may still use other federal child care programs for which they are eligible.² For eligibility purposes, a low-income student-parent is any undergraduate student-parent eligible to receive a federal Pell Grant, as well as any student-parent who would be eligible to receive a Pell Grant except that they are enrolled in a graduate or professional degree program, or are a temporary visa student.³

This report briefly describes the postsecondary undergraduate student-parent population and their dependent care costs. It then provides an explanation of CCAMPIS eligibility and program requirements. This is followed by a summary of program appropriations trends, program outcome data, and recent congressional proposals to reauthorize and modify the program.

Characteristics of Undergraduate Pell Grant Recipient Student-Parents

Every four years, the U.S. Department of Education's (ED's) National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) conducts the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS). This nationally representative survey examines the characteristics of students in postsecondary education, with a special emphasis on how they finance their education.⁴ Data presented below are from the NPSAS administered during academic year (AY) 2015-2016.

Data presented in the figures below compare the percentages of undergraduates who are student-parents based on their Pell Grant recipient status. In AY2015-2016, 22% of undergraduate students and 31% of graduate students were parents.⁵ The largest share of undergraduate student-parents who received Pell Grants attended public two-year institutions (33%), followed by public four-year institutions (18%), and private for-profit institutions (18%). Because graduate students do not receive Pell Grants, this comparison is only available at the undergraduate level. Data presented also display the distribution of monthly dependent care costs faced by undergraduate student-parents.

In AY2015-2016, 39% of all undergraduate students received Pell Grants, and 29% of undergraduate student-parents were Pell recipients (see Figure 1). Of the 3.8 million undergraduate students raising children while in college, 1.1 million were Pell recipients.

Figure 1. Share of Undergraduate Student-Parents by Pell Grant Recipient Status AY2015-2016

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, National Postsecondary Student Aid Study: 2016 Undergraduates (NPSAS:16UG). Notes: Student-parent refers to any student who reports a dependent child.

The majority of undergraduate student-parents were paying between $1 to $500 in monthly dependent care costs. Dependent care costs are the average amounts the student, and spouse if applicable, were responsible for paying each month for paid child care. As shown in Figure 2, these costs differed depending upon Pell or non-Pell recipient status. Seventy-four percent of Pell Grant recipients spent $500 or less per month compared to 63% of non-Pell Grant recipients, with more than three-fourths of these costs funding child care for dependents age 6 and under.⁶

Figure 2. Distribution of Monthly Dependent Care Fees Paid by Undergraduate Students Who Had Dependent Children in Paid Child care, by Pell Grant Recipient Status AY2015-2016

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, National Postsecondary Student Aid Study: 2016 Undergraduates (NPSAS:16UG). Notes: Percentages exclude those student-parents who did not pay for child care and cannot be differentiated from other respondents without dependent children who skipped this survey question.

CCAMPIS Awards

The purpose of CCAMPIS grants is "to support the participation of low-income parents in postsecondary education through the provision of campus-based child care services."⁷ ED administers the program, awarding grants directly to IHEs based on a set of competitive priorities and statutorily specified requirements.⁸

Grant funds are used by IHEs to subsidize child care costs for low-income, Pell Grant-eligible students; provide child care via campus-based programs or by outsourcing within the community; and provide child care services before or after school.⁹ ED awards grants to IHEs for a period of four years.¹⁰

CCAMPIS Application Process

To be eligible for a CCAMPIS grant, an IHE must first meet all requirements under HEA Title IV.¹¹ Additionally, the total amount of all Pell Grant funds awarded to students enrolled for the preceding fiscal year must equal or exceed $350,000, a minimum that declines to $250,000 when appropriations for CCAMPIS exceed $20 million.¹² Grant competitions are held every four years,¹³ as awards are for a four-year period.

Eligible applicants must demonstrate the child care needs of low-income students by including an assessment of child care capacity on or near campus, waiting lists for existing child care, and additional needs created by concentrations of poverty or geographic isolation, among other relevant factors.¹⁴ Applicants must also identify resources that will support their child care program, including technical expertise and financial support, and explain the extent to which the child care program will coordinate with the institution's early childhood education curriculum regardless of whether care is provided on-campus.¹⁵

IHEs seeking assistance for a new child care program must adhere to additional statutory requirements. Applicants must provide a complete project timeline, covering the period from the receipt of the grant through the provision of child care services, delineating the specific steps the institution will take to achieve the goal of providing low-income students with child care services. IHEs must also specify any measures they will take to assist low-income students with child care before the institutions provide child care services.¹⁶ Prior successful applicants do not receive preference in the competition.

ED considers only those applications that meet two absolute priorities, per statutorily specific requirements.¹⁷ First, projects must leverage significant local or institutional resources, including in-kind contributions. Second, projects must use a sliding fee scale in order to support a higher number of low-income parents.

ED may also establish competitive preference priorities and invitational priorities.¹⁸ Whereas applicants addressing a competitive priority may be awarded additional points in the grant competition, those addressing invitational priorities do not receive additional points. In FY2022, the competitive preference priority centered on strengthening cross-agency coordination and community engagement to advance systemic change. The three invitational priorities focused on supporting students who are single parents, increasing campus-based child care for infants and toddlers, and providing wraparound services.

Grant Amounts

HEA provisions delineate that CCAMPIS grants may not exceed 1% of the total amount of all Pell Grant funds awarded to students enrolled at the recipient IHE for the preceding fiscal year.¹⁹ HEA provisions also specify that the minimum award size is $10,000 per year unless overall CCAMPIS annual appropriations exceed $20 million, at which point the minimum grant becomes $30,000.²⁰ Appropriations exceeded $20 million for the first time in FY2018 and have continued to exceed this level in subsequent years.

Uses of Grant Funds

CCAMPIS funds may be used either to provide direct child care services or to contract for the provision of child care services, which may be off-campus or home-based where there is not capacity on-campus. Funds may be used to provide before- and after-school services.²¹ However, the IHE must have oversight authority over all facilities receiving grant funds, and these facilities must have a plan to become accredited within three years of receiving funds.²² Students may have to pay full or partial fees as part of each IHE's sliding scale.²³

Allowable costs for a campus-based child care program include personnel, fringe benefits, travel for the project director for professional development, supplies, instructional materials, equipment, contracts for the provision of child care, and up to 8% in indirect costs. Funds may not be used for the construction of facilities, except for minor renovation or repair.²⁴ A campus-based child care program may also provide services to students who are not CCAMPIS recipients and to employees.

Statutory provisions do not establish requirements or limitations on the age of the dependent child or the type of child care services that may be supported. Each CCAMPIS program varies and may provide after-school daycare for older children for a few hours while parents attend class, as opposed to all-day child care services. Services provided may include evening, weekend, and summer services; 24-hour and emergency services; parenting classes; and seminars and meetings. Though ED's invitational priorities and HEA provisions place an emphasis on on-campus child care, statutory provisions permit CCAMPIS grantees to provide services off-campus.

Accreditation and Licensure

Applications must include a plan for any child care facility that receives CCAMPIS funding to become accredited within three years.²⁵ Accreditation provides an assurance of a level of quality of child care services. The accreditation requirement is unique to CCAMPIS compared to other federal child care programs, which do not typically mandate a plan for accreditation.²⁶

Child care facilities must also meet applicable state or local government licensing, certification, approval, or registration requirements. Licensures ensure the program meets specified health and safety standards.

Annual Reporting²⁷

CCAMPIS recipients report data on the population served; information on campus and community resources and funding used to help low-income students access child care services; information on progress made toward accreditation of any child care facility; and information on the impact of the CCAMPIS grant on the quality, availability, and affordability of campus-based child care services.

All CCAMPIS grantees submit an annual performance report documenting the persistence and degree attainment of their participants. Grantees must provide the following information:

• Institutional characteristics, including
• child care center accreditation and licensing status,
• fee schedules used,
• institutional and community resources and funding, and
• the number of children per student supported by the program.
• Individual student demographics and outcomes, including
• gender,
• ethnicity,
• Pell Grant enrollment status,
• low-income status,
• marital status,
• enrollment by the applicable educational schedule (semesters, quarters, terms),
• number of years taken to transfer or graduate,
• degree or certificate earned, and
• students who transferred (from a two-year institution to a four-year institution) and those who withdrew.²⁸

CCAMPIS Outcomes

According to a 2019 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report²⁹ using data from AY2016-2017,³⁰ CCAMPIS helped about 3,300 student-parents pay child care costs. More than 4,000 children were on waiting lists to receive assistance. The median monthly payment by low-income student-parents was about $160, after receiving CCAMPIS subsidies of about $385 per month. The GAO report also highlighted that many eligible student-parents may not be aware of their eligibility for aid programs.³¹

ED's FY2023 budget justification³² presents the most recently available persistence rate (the percentage of CCAMPIS participants who remain in postsecondary education at the end of the academic year). These data, from FY2018, indicate a CCAMPIS participant persistence rate of 78%. The postsecondary persistence rate for all full-time students in postsecondary institutions in FY2018 was 75.5%.³³

Appropriations and Awards

Appropriations for CCAMPIS were authorized at such sums as may be necessary for FY2009 through FY2014. The authorization was extended through FY2015 under the General Education Provisions Act (GEPA). Since then, the program has continued to receive appropriations annually.³⁴

After years of fairly level funding, FY2018 marked the beginning of annual increases in CCAMPIS appropriations, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. CCAMPIS Appropriations: FY2011-FY2023 (in millions of dollars)

Source: FY2012 Congressional Action, https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget11/11action.pdf; FY2014 Congressional Action, https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget14/14action.pdf; FY2016 Congressional Action, https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget16/16action.pdf; FY2018 Congressional Action, https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget18/18action.xlsx; FY2020 Congressional Action, https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget20/20action.pdf; FY2022 Congressional Action, https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget22/22action.pdf. FY2023 Congressional Action, https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget23/23action.pdf. Notes: Years shown are fiscal years.

Table 1 shows the number and average size of CCAMPIS awards for FY2021 and FY2022. In FY2021, ED received significantly fewer applications than expected and, as a result, used the funding to frontload prior-year grantees. In FY2022, there were 300 new awards funded at an average of $150,000 annually for the duration of the four-year grant.³⁵

Recent Congressional Proposals

CCAMPIS-related proposals in the 117^th Congress included the Child Care is Infrastructure Act (H.R. 1911) and the CCAMPIS Reauthorization Act (S. 2625). There were substantial differences between the two bills.

H.R. 1911³⁶

This bill would have established grants for child care facilities and higher education loan repayment and scholarship programs for child care educators, among other provisions. Regarding CCAMPIS, the bill would have increased the maximum amount of the grant award to IHEs to no more than 2% of the total amount of all Pell Grants awarded to enrolled students, replacing the current maximum of 1%. H.R. 1911 would also have allowed ED to pay a bonus to institutions that exceeded performance levels on newly established performance metrics, and it would have increased the duration of grants from four to five years.

To establish performance levels, grant recipients would have reported additional data on the number of students who received child care services at least once per week, including their graduation rates and the number of credits accumulated. Performance reports based on these levels would have been publicly available. This reporting requirement mirrors similar changes proposed in the 115^th and 116^th Congresses as part of proposed reauthorizations of the HEA.³⁷

S. 2625

This bill would have permanently reauthorized CCAMPIS and allowed grant funds to be used for additional purposes (such as direct child care subsidies to students as opposed to contracted and other support services). S. 2625 would have increased the minimum grant amount to $75,000 (from the current $30,000) and established a maximum amount of $2 million (there is no current maximum).³⁸ The funding duration would have increased from four to five years, similar to H.R. 1911.

Instead of using a dollar amount of Pell Grants received to determine institutional eligibility for CCAMPIS, S. 2625 would have changed eligibility requirements to be determined by the number of Pell Grant recipients, creating an eligibility minimum of 150 Pell Grant recipients regardless of the total dollar amount received.

The bill also aimed to increase the quality of campus-based child care servicing by implementing the same training and professional development requirements for CCAMPIS grantees that are mandated for other federal child care programs. For example, Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) programs require training and professional development plans that are ongoing and incorporate specific content such as social-emotional behavior intervention models grounded in current research and evidence-based practices.³⁹