Child Care Costs Strain Family Budgets

A new report from the Washington Area Women’s Foundation compares the cost of child care in the DC, Maryland and Virginia. At more than $22,600 per year, center-based child care is most expensive in DC and least expensive in Virginia, where the cost is $10,458 per year – or roughly the same as a year’s tuition at a public university. For workers with low- to moderate-income, these costs can be prohibitive. At the same time, there is growing attention being paid to the need for quality early childhood education, including increased expectations of what children need to know before they enter kindergarten. (See our post Researchers Show Kindergarten is the New First Grade.)