College Students Who Are Parents Face Cuts to Federal Support Grants
Credit: Kevin Carter / Getty Images News / Getty Images- Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program grants subsidize childcare expenses for college students who are parents.
- At least a dozen colleges did not have their CCAMPIS grants renewed for the 2025-26 academic year.
- The Trump administration has not said why it pulled the plug on school-specific funding.
- Budget proposals backed by the administration call for the elimination of CCAMPIS altogether.
Many college students who are parents could lose access to childcare subsidies in the coming weeks.
The Department of Education (ED) has decided not to renew many Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program grants for the 2025-26 academic year.
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While it remains unclear just how many colleges and universities are affected, Generation Hope CEO Nicole Lynn Lewis told BestColleges that she knows of over a dozen institutions that have had funding cut.
ED did not provide a reason why these institutions lost CCAMPIS funds.
“There isn’t a real dialogue happening,” Lewis said. “This is really contributing to a lot of the uncertainty.”
She added that ED was already scrutinizing some affected institutions for their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies. However, she clarified that this is just speculation that the two topics could be related.
What Is CCAMPIS?
CCAMPIS is a federal program that awards funds to colleges and universities that enroll a large percentage of Pell Grant recipients. Institutions can then use these funds to subsidize childcare costs for parenting college students.
Schools can choose to run their own childcare programs or partner with local facilities and provide vouchers to students.
BestColleges identified a handful of community colleges caught in the CCAMPIS funding freeze:
- Paradise Valley Community College
- Pima Community College
- Perimeter College
Pima Community College Governing Board Chairman Greg Taylor told Arizona Luminaria that Pima lost approximately $1 million in CCAMPIS funding. Taylor declined to speak with BestColleges on the matter.
Other administrators and institutions took to social media to share the news.
“Yesterday, I got a call from a parenting student who wanted to take advantage of the Panther Parent Pride Program. My grant ends in 15 days,” Ursula Thomas, associate department chair of social sciences at Perimeter College, wrote on LinkedIn. “The loss of CCAMPIS funding will have devastating effects.”
Paradise Valley Community College used Facebook to share that no daycare subsidies can be paid for daycare charges incurred after Sept. 30.
Lewis said there is little institutions can do to address a sudden loss of federal funds, especially community colleges. Schools that benefit from CCAMPIS already tend to be under-resourced and don’t have endowments to fill holes left by the federal government.
She added that it’s also unrealistic to expect state governments to plug these holes on short notice.
“Without affordable childcare, students will have to choose between earning a degree or credential and their childcare responsibilities,” Lewis said. “It’s not a choice that any parent should have to make when it comes to pursuing education.”
There are more drastic CCAMPIS cuts she worries about, too.
President Donald Trump’s budget proposal called for eliminating CCAMPIS altogether, calling the program “unaffordable and duplicative.” The House Appropriations Committee budget for education programs also called for defunding the CCAMPIS program.
An estimated 18% of undergraduate students are parents, according to the American Council on Education. In 2018, $50 million in CCAMPIS funding helped approximately 11,000 college students pay for childcare, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.