The cost of Princeton childcare

The University recently announced its new "Student Child Care Assistance Program" (SCCAP) along with a similar program for University employees (ECCAP). According to Graduate School dean William Russell, "the grants under the SCCAP are based on total household income not exceeding $130,000, are portable and can be used to pay for a wide range of possible arrangements, from in-home care to licensed day care centers." Providing financial aid for childcare is not new at Princeton. The University has been providing subsidies to graduate students and staff for 14 years, but only through the University League Nursery School (ULNS) and U-NOW Daycare. The new program is set to replace and expand the existing program. It is based on similar programs that have been implemented at Stanford and Cornell and represents a significant step toward putting Princeton on the map of "family-friendly" institutions. In some ways, however, the initiative falls short.

The new program will provide far less aid (compared to the existing program) for many students and will continue to exclude foreign students, as well as families that do not fit the "dual working-parent" model. Because "details of this program are still being finalized," the opportunity remains for Princeton to address these shortcomings. With input from the community of parents, Princeton is in a position to implement a program that reflects the needs of a new generation of families in academia.

In order to be eligible for aid through SCCAP, the spouse of the full-time student or employee must be employed at least 50 percent part-time. The problem with this "spouse-work" restriction is that it is blind to the potential benefits of childcare for the children. Childcare should not be thought of solely in terms of parents working. The time that our children spend in these places is irreplaceable from the point of view of child development. The administration maintains that the assistance is intended only as a "direct benefit to the University student or employee."

This is problematic because the financial assistance will benefit the child anyway. Studies clearly show the significant and long-lasting benefits of quality daycare — benefits that carry on through college age and possibly beyond. Even if the benefits are deemed equitably distributed among the parents, with the restriction in place, the benefits will not be equitably distributed among the children. This is not to say that all children should be sent to daycare or nursery school, but the opportunity should not be made available to some and denied to others solely on the basis of the parents' employment status.

Another shortcoming of the spouse-work requirement is that it does not allow "caring for one's own children" to qualify as "work." Consider a spouse who works full-time as a nanny taking care of someone else's children. This family will qualify for aid under the SCCAP and will be able to use that aid money to pay for a nanny to care for their children. Now suppose that the spouse decides to quit her job as a nanny, take care of her own toddler at home and send her older child to nursery school. This is a reasonable choice, but now the family will no longer qualify for aid.

The spouse-work requirement also represents a de facto exclusion of foreign students from participation in the SCCAP: In most cases, the spouse of the student cannot work due to visa restrictions. Foreign students living on a single stipend are some of the neediest people on campus. Having their children in daycare or nursery school helps these families integrate more easily into the community.

One argument for maintaining the restriction is that the University simply cannot afford to give a childcare subsidy to every single graduate-student family. But under the new program, the University is committed to providing aid to every graduate-student family that qualifies, knowing this could amount to every graduate-student family on campus. This seriously begs the question, why is it necessary to restrict eligibility at all? The only honest answer to this question is that the spouse-work restriction reflects a value judgment. Consider that financial need does not trump work status for eligibility in the program: It is not about how much you need the aid, it is about what you intend to do with the free hands it buys you.

Finally, most grad students in need of full-time daycare (like U-NOW) may be priced out of the childcare market under the new program. Currently, at the U-NOW daycare center, a low-income grad student gets up to about $12,000 per year in aid, leaving the student paying about $300 per month. Under the new program, with the maximum $5,000 per year/child, the same student will be left paying $1,000 per month! Few grad students can afford that amount and some will have to turn down the aid because they can't afford to make up the difference. The University has set up a "grandfather" policy so that students currently receiving aid will continue to receive a similar amount. But where will that leave the next generation of grad-student parents?

Before the program goes into effect for next year, the administration should consider input from the Graduate Student Government and the community of parents and tune the structure of the program accordingly. Aaron Schurger is a graduate student in the psychology department. He can be reached at schurger@princeton.edu.