Lawmakers do a lot of fretting over the cost of college in Florida.
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The largest disparity between the cost to attend day care and the cost to attend college resides in Florida.
Wall Street Journal’s Eric Morath reports that in almost half the country, it is now more expensive to educate a four-year-old in pre-school than an eighteen-year-old in college. It costs parents $6,360 (59.4 percent) more per year than in-state tuition for a four-year public college.
Using that yardstick, only 35.5 percent of Alaska families could afford to put an infant in day care.
These numbers go down as children get older. This is still more than the average in-state college tuition of $10,702.
Child care is a huge investment and often a financial burden for Alaska families, rivaling mortgage or rent payments, said Stephanie Berglund, chief executive of Thread, a statewide network that helps families find quality child care and other early learning services.
By that standard, a minimum wage worker would need to work full time for 28 weeks just to pay for one infant’s care.
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New parents are being hit with a surprising financial challenge.
