The Importance of Access to High Quality Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE)

Every child deserves access to a high-quality early education experience. When all children in our state receive this support, the benefits ripple throughout our communities, enhancing lifelong outcomes, strengthening local communities, and allowing parents more flexibility to work and increase their economic situation. High-quality early learning is not just about those critical early years, it’s about fostering futures where children are healthier, happier, and can access the same opportunities as their peers. Virginia families, advocates, child care providers, and policymakers have come together in recent years to expand access to child care for working families while also continuing initiatives to improve the quality of child care and early childhood education. Yet much work remains to make sure that eligible families across all Virginia communities can access high-quality, affordable child care and early childhood education opportunities. 

High-Quality Programs Lead to Short- and Long-Term Benefits

Access to high-quality early education transforms lives and communities. Research shows children who participate in high-quality early childhood care exhibit improved school readiness, reduced special education and grade retention rates, and higher high school graduation rates — benefits that reduce long-term public spending. Within the classroom, a meta analysis of studies reveals that early education participation leads to long-term academic success: lower rates of special education placement, fewer children repeating grades, and higher high school graduation rates. And beyond the classroom, participation in high-quality programs has been linked to higher lifetime earnings, better health outcomes, and even reduced involvement in crime. These findings emphasize that early investment not only propels short-term gains but also sets children on trajectories toward lifelong success and well-being. When communities invest in early education, they nurture more resilient and capable generations, ultimately leading to more robust communal well-being.

Not all early education is equally effective, and quality matters. High-quality programs with responsive educators, low student-to-teacher ratios, research-based curricula, and strong family engagement are essential for long-lasting benefits. Programs lacking these features may yield temporary gains that fade over time. Virginia’s existing robust quality measurement system provides a strong foundation to make sure that much-needed policy choices to boost reimbursement rates that address staffing turnover and other financial barriers result in real, measurable improvements in ECCE quality.

High-quality early education also fuels economic opportunity for families and the broader economy. Full-day preschool and early education programs allow parents, especially mothers, the flexibility to work more hours and significantly increase household income. One study in Connecticut found parents’ income rose by roughly $5,500 per year, benefiting both families and state coffers. Similarly, researchers examining administrative data from the Virginia Longitudinal Data System found that access to child care subsidies boosted annual earnings by an average of $2,788 when including parents who are able to get jobs because they have access to child care. 

Additionally, a study that modeled the impact of Virginia’s increased investment in ECCE between fiscal years 2019 and 2023 estimated that, by allowing mothers to work more hours, the additional state investment of $309 million resulted in about 10,700 previously-unemployed mothers becoming employed, thereby lifting about 5,500 children under age 5 out of poverty. More parents working and having more disposable income due to not spending more than they can afford on child care also generates more tax revenue. The same Virginia study estimated that the $309 million state investment in ECCE resulted in an increase in family earnings and disposable income of at least $364 million, generating at least $30 million in increased state revenue that could then be reinvested in community priorities. Simply put, access to affordable, full-day, full-year early education is a vital economic support that keeps parents connected to the workforce and fosters financial stability.

A Public Problem Requiring Public Policy Solutions 

Families want and need access to early childhood care and education programs, as is demonstrated by the waiting lists for Virginia’s subsidy programs. Educators in child care programs are often paid too little to make ends meet. At the same time, many families cannot afford high-quality, or any, ECCE without public help, which limits parents’ employment, reduces the primary caregivers’ and children’s lifetime earnings, and increases child poverty. As JLARC noted in 2023, “Virginia’s lack of affordable child care services is a major barrier to self-sufficiency.” 

The current situation creates at least three problems, as identified by a recent Rappaport Institute study. First, parents who are paid low wages simply cannot afford child care, and their children are therefore denied the opportunity to attend high-quality ECCE programs, which lowers their lifetime earnings through no fault of their own. Second, even middle-income families, facing high-cost child care while not yet at their peak earnings years, may not be able to afford as high quality a program as they would if the expense came at a different time in their life. This creates an economic argument for adults of all ages to pitch in via taxes to help young adults (and their children) access child care subsidies. Third, uncertainty in enrollment and low reimbursement rates discourage providers from expanding capacity in the absence of some public guarantee or insurance against lower-than-expected enrollment.

Increasing Quality and Quantity 

Investing in early education can’t just mean access; it must mean access to quality programs and educators. Virginia has a robust quality measurement system for its publicly-funded child care programs. Increasing access to those programs will mean more parents can go to work knowing their children are safe and learning. Additionally, Virginia should make sure that reimbursement rates and the Cost of Quality methodology are sufficient and updated so that child care providers can attract and retain highly qualified educators. Doing so will increase access to supportive teaching and meaningful curriculum while meeting the diverse needs of Virginia families, helping our children, their families, and our communities flourish now and in the future.

Raising reimbursement rates to recognize the cost of quality

Currently, providers can’t afford to raise wages enough to retain experienced staff. Virginia currently only pays 75% of the cost of providing quality services for children enrolled in the Child Care Subsidy Program, which serves low- and moderate-income families who make up to 85% of Virginia median income for their household size. And child care workers in Virginia typically made just $30,150 a year in 2024. At a 30% rent-to-income ratio, that’s only enough to pay $754 a month in rent. That same year, the typical rent for a 1-bedroom apartment was $945 a month in the Roanoke area, $1,042 in the Lynchburg area, $1,373 in the Hampton Roads area, $1,472 in the Richmond area, and $1,934 in the D.C. area. Despite most child care workers being committed to the industry as a long-term career, 55% worry about not having enough money to buy healthy food and 1 in 3 struggles with depression, which research shows is more likely with food insecurity and poverty.

Increasing access to child care for working families

Right now, long waiting lists for help paying for child care mean that working families who are paid low wages must often choose between unaffordable child care costs or leaving their jobs. Just 42% of eligible children receive publicly-funded child care, leaving thousands of families without reliable, affordable child care that would allow them the flexibility to work and their children without access to high-quality child development programming. While some families can get child care help from a grandparent or neighbor, this isn’t always an option.

Because Black parents are often paid less due to employment discrimination and differences in inherited wealth, not meeting the child care needs of all eligible children in low- and moderate-income families particularly harms Black children and families. Overall, about 1 in 3 children under age 6 in Virginia are likely eligible for the Child Care Subsidy Program based on their family income and employment,¹ and about half of Black children in Virginia are likely eligible. That means that when reimbursement rates for child care are too low to allow providers to pay adequate wages, and when not all eligible children can get child care due to waitlists and insufficient funding, Black children are too often left waiting for high-quality child care. This undermines their parents’ ability to get and keep full-time work. And with Black students currently being less likely than all Virginia students to meet kindergarten readiness benchmarks, Virginia is ignoring an opportunity to provide access to the kind of high-quality early childhood care and education that boosts school readiness. 

An Investment for Now and in Our Future

Virginia can address these challenges by investing in child care access for low- and moderate-income families, providing them the flexibility to work while knowing their children are in safe, enriching environments with educators who aren’t worrying about where they’ll get their next meal. Raising reimbursement rates can help address the need for higher wages for child care workers and early childhood educators, recognize the cost to increase the quality of early education as measured by Virginia’s Unified Virginia Quality Birth to Five System (VQB5), and fix the problem of Virginia only paying a portion of current child care costs for each child, even after including the parental copay. Meanwhile, investing in access by expanding the number of available “slots” will help more families afford to work. 

High-quality child care and early childhood education costs money, and many low- and moderate-income families can’t afford those costs on their own. Yet we know from the research that when young children get a good start on their education, it sets them up for success later in life. Investing in our youngest children is good for working families today, and it’s good for all of us in the long run.

References

• Barnett, W. S., “Effectiveness of early educational intervention,” Science, 333(6045), 975-978, 2011
• Campbell, F. A., et al., “Adult outcomes as a function of an early childhood educational program: An Abecedarian Project follow-up,” Developmental Psychology, 50(1), 42–53, 2014
• Cascio, E. U., “Maternal labor supply and the introduction of kindergartens into American public schools,” Journal of Human Resources, 44(1), 140-170, 2009
• Heckman, J. J., et al., “The rate of return to the HighScope Perry Preschool Program,” Journal of Public Economics, 94(1-2), 114-128, 2010
• Humphries, J.E. et al., “Parents’ Earnings and the Return to Universal Pre-Kindergarten,” NBER working paper 33038, 2025
• Magnuson, K., & Duncan, G. J., “Can early childhood interventions decrease inequality of economic opportunity?” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 2(2), 123–141, 2016
• Morrissey, T. W., “Child care and parents’ labor force participation: A review of the research literature,” Review of Economics of the Household, 15, 1–24, 2017
• National Institute for Early Education Research, “The state of preschool yearbook 2019,” 2019
• Phillips, D., Lipsey, M. W., Dodge, K. A., Haskins, R., Bassok, D., Burchinal, M. R., … & Weiland, C., “Puzzling it out: The current state of scientific knowledge on pre-kindergarten effects,” Brookings Institution, 2017
• Schweinhart, L. J., et al., “Lifetime effects: The HighScope Perry Preschool study through age 40,” HighScope Press, 2005
• Yoshikawa, H., et al., “Investing in our future: The evidence base on preschool education,” Society for Research in Child Development, 2013

Endnotes

1. TCI analysis based on 2023 ACS data. To be eligible for the child care subsidy program in Virginia, all parents in the household must be working, looking for work, or participating in training or education, and the family income must be under 85% of the state median income