Daycare More Expensive Than College in Maryland, Study Finds

MARYLAND — Parents in Maryland may be dipping into college savings for their kids much earlier. They may have to use the savings to pay for daycare before that child even heads to elementary school.

A study recently released by the Economic Policy Institute reported that Maryland is one of 33 states where infant care is more expensive than college, and is ranked second-most costly in the country. 

Maryland is ranked fifth out of 50 states and the District of Columbia for most expensive infant care.

The report found that the average annual cost of infant care in the Old Line State is $13,932, which breaks down to $1,161 per month, and child care for a 4-year-old costs $9,100, or $758 per month.

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In comparing the cost to college tuition, infant care is $5,612, or 67.5 percent more than the cost of an in-state four-year college. Care for infants also costs families 11.3 percent less than average rent rates, said the study.

Families with two children of course are paying more, but even one child is costing the average family 16 percent of its annual income in Maryland. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services concluded that it should cost no more than 10 percent of they family's annual income to be "affordable." By this standard, only 27.7 percent of Maryland families can afford infant care.

• Read the full report here.

A minimum-wage worker in Maryland would need to work full time for 42 weeks, or from January to October, just to pay for child care for one infant.

In spite of the steep cost of care, child care workers struggle to get by, the study say.

Nationally, child care workers’ families are more than twice as likely to live in poverty as other workers’ families (14.7% compared with 6.7%).

A typical child care worker in Maryland would have to spend 68 percent of her earnings to put her own child in infant care.