Financing Access to High Quality Early Care and Education for All of Illinois’ Children

This report discusses an approach to providing financial access for all of Illinois’ children to high-quality early learning experiences that will help them reach their fullest potential. A set of policies are presented that can achieve this goal at moderate budgetary costs while targeting a majority of funds to the most vulnerable children and families in the State. Analysis shows that achieving high-quality early care and education (ECE) for Illinois’ children would require significant increases in hourly costs, as much as 15 to 20 percent above current 75th percentile market rate levels for infants and toddlers. Achieving high-quality ECE would drive costs beyond the level that middle income parents can afford if they are not given some form of financial assistance. The analysis also shows that it is possible to design a partially subsidized ECE system that provides high quality at prices parents can afford with moderate impact on the State budget. Universal access to high-quality early learning for children age birth to 5 years could be achieved with additional State spending equivalent to about a 10.3 percent point increase in total public education spending, phased in over a number of years. This would cost only one-fifth as much as a universal prekindergarten approach. If the goal is to achieve universal access to high-quality ECE, then it is important to phase in broad policies that apply to the entire system, rather than adopting limited programs for small populations.