Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/child-care-fees-rising-s-l-o-w-l-y/5016632/
For 18 years, Exchange has been monitoring fees charged by early childhood programs in the United States. Since 1989, three trends have consistently prevailed:• Fees have been increasing, but at a steadily decreasing rate.
• Fees vary by age group.
• Fees vary dramatically by region.
Fees increasing slowly
In the 1980s, when the child care market was still expanding at a great rate, child care fees were rising at a healthy rate. However, the wheels fell off in the early ‘90s. Then, with the collapse of the economy in 2001, child care programs were hard pressed to hold the line
on fees.
Child care fees continue to increase every year. But the rate of increase is slowing. From 1989 to 1994 fees increased at an annual rate of just over 6%. But most of the increases occurred at the beginning of this period, with fees rising by an average annual rate of over 8% between 1989 and 1991. However, from 1996 to 2005, fees increased at an annual rate of just under 2.5%.
Fees vary
by age group
Not surprisingly, over the past 16 years, fees have consistently varied by the age of the child in care. In the 2005 fees survey, fees in the United States by age differ as ...