The CCAMPIS program is the only federal initiative that helps low-income student parents access child care while pursuing higher education. Colleges can apply for CCAMPIS funding up to one percent of their prior-year Pell Grant utilization. By design, CCAMPIS grants subsidize child care for low-income parenting students, enabling them to stay enrolled and make progress toward completing their education.
Nearly one in five undergraduate students—over three million—are raising children. A lack of affordable child care remains one of the most significant barriers to attainment for these students, especially single mothers. The decline in campus-based child care further underscores the need for CCAMPIS: in 2023, only 264 colleges received CCAMPIS funding, down from 327 in 2021, with average awards of $317,108. In 2018, $50 million in CCAMPIS funding supported an estimated 11,000 parenting students.
The proposed CCAMPIS Reauthorization Act would increase funding to $500 million and expand access to an estimated 100,000 more parenting students. In reality, student parents are likely to take on more debt than non-parenting students, partly due to a lack of access to affordable child care, underscoring the urgency of sustained and expanded investment in CCAMPIS.
As the only federal program dedicated to child care access for student parents, CCAMPIS plays a critical role in supporting educational attainment. Weakening the Department of Education (ED) and moving CCAMPIS to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would only make college attainment more difficult for parenting students.
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### Concerns Over Moving CCAMPIS from ED to HHS
The Interagency Agreement (IAA) moved CCAMPIS from ED’s Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) to the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) within HHS. The administration argues that since ACF oversees the Head Start program, it is better positioned to administer CCAMPIS. However, HHS—particularly ACF—has experienced significant staffing reductions due to reductions in force (RIFs) carried out under the administration.
Moving a program fundamentally designed to support postsecondary education outcomes into a weakened department will further harm CCAMPIS and the vital support it provides to parenting students. ACF’s reduced capacity undermines its ability to absorb new programs, especially those with complex grant administration requirements. This transfer increases the risk of delayed competitions, unclear guidance, inconsistent oversight, and reduced data reporting quality to the public.
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### CCAMPIS and Its Role Within Higher Education
Authorized under the Higher Education Act of 1965, CCAMPIS grants were first funded in fiscal year (FY) 1999 following the enactment of the Higher Education Act Amendments of 1998. The Higher Education Act (HEA) is landmark legislation that governs the administration of federal higher education programs, with the goal to ensure that everyone has access to higher education regardless of income or zip code.
CCAMPIS fits squarely within this mission by strengthening the educational resources of colleges and providing financial assistance to students. The decision to move CCAMPIS to HHS is one of the Trump administration’s continued attempts to undermine and ultimately eliminate ED, as stated in Project 2025.
Unlike child care programs administered by HHS, such as Head Start, CCAMPIS relies on ED’s student aid infrastructure—including FAFSA data, Pell Grant eligibility, and deep institutional partnerships—to determine eligibility and support student parents. HHS does not possess the higher education expertise or institutional knowledge needed to effectively implement CCAMPIS.
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### Legal and Administrative Challenges of the Transfer
The legality of transferring a congressionally authorized higher education program without congressional approval has been widely questioned. The IAA between ED and HHS attempts to navigate this concern by splitting responsibilities: ED retains sixteen statutory duties while delegating seven administrative tasks to HHS “in coordination with and subject to ED supervision.”
This arrangement adds complexity and contradicts the administration’s claim that the transfer will streamline bureaucracy.
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### Mischaracterizing CCAMPIS: “Unaffordable and Duplicative”
The administration’s fact sheet claims the CCAMPIS transfer is an efficiency measure while also labeling the program as “unaffordable and duplicative.” The President’s earlier FY 2026 budget request echoes this framing, stating that CCAMPIS should be eliminated because subsidizing child care for student parents is “unaffordable and duplicative,” and that institutions or the Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG) can meet the need instead.
However, CCDBG—the federal program that provides child care subsidies to low-income families—reaches only about 14 percent of eligible children nationwide due to lack of federal investment. Additionally, many states have eligibility rules that prioritize work over education, restrict allowable education or training, limit the counting of travel or study hours, and maintain long waitlists, which make it difficult for student parents to qualify for or maintain subsidies.
CCAMPIS is designed to fill these gaps. It supports both campus-based child care programs and off-campus care, providing institutions with the flexibility to meet student parents where they are. This flexibility, aligned with the unique needs of student parents, is fundamentally different from CCDBG’s design.
Framing CCAMPIS as “unaffordable and duplicative” overlooks the barriers student parents face and misconstrues the program’s role. Eliminating or transferring the program would reduce, rather than expand, the limited child care options available to students with low incomes.
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### Disruptions Already Underway
The IAA is highly disruptive for colleges, student parents, and the supportive systems they rely on to care for their children. For the past two consecutive years, ED has not opened a new CCAMPIS grant competition, and communication from the department explaining this has been limited.
In the summer of 2025, ED only continued existing grants and discontinued those that did not align with the administration’s priorities. Staffing shortages from widespread layoffs have further constrained ED’s capacity.
Although the fact sheet states that “states and grantees should not expect to experience programmatic disruptions due to the partnership,” recent moves—such as transferring the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education to the Department of Labor—show otherwise. ED nearly missed a deadline for FY 2025, which would have disrupted funding streams.
Adding HHS to this already unstable environment will deepen uncertainty. Parenting students, who already juggle immense responsibilities with limited time, resources, and support, cannot afford further unpredictable access to child care. Campus centers, likewise, cannot reliably plan staffing or slots amid disruptions to the grant program.
Student parents deserve stable, reliable child care, but these disruptions jeopardize their ability to stay enrolled and complete their programs.
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### Broader Context: Impact on Parenting Students
This move also comes after the passage of H.R. 1, known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which cuts funding to vital public benefit programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid—programs that parenting students often rely on.
Ultimately, reduced access to both child care and basic needs programs will make college completion even more difficult for student parents.
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### Recommendations for Strengthening CCAMPIS
If the administration is truly committed to improving child care access for student parents, it should focus on improving CCAMPIS rather than transferring the program to another agency. Evidence-informed recommendations include:
– **Increasing program funding** to support more student parents and reduce long waitlists.
– **Simplifying the application and reporting process,** which many institutions, especially community colleges, find burdensome and duplicative.
– **Expanding eligibility** to providers beyond those with national accreditation, including high-quality state-licensed programs.
– **Allowing CCAMPIS funds to support facility development or renovation,** enabling institutions to expand child care capacity.
– **Creating a formal campus advisory group** to advise ED on program implementation, technical assistance, and to ensure CCAMPIS is responsive to institutional and student needs.
– **Supporting flexible child care models,** including family, friend, and neighbor (FFN) care options that student parents rely on for evenings, weekends, and in child care deserts.
– **Publishing de-identified, disaggregated CCAMPIS performance data** to better understand who the program serves and where gaps persist.
Learn more by exploring New America’s [Policy Agenda on Improving Child Care Access for Student Parents](https://www.newamerica.org/policy-agenda/) and IWPR’s [Federal Policy Solutions to Advance Gender Equity Supporting Student Parents](https://iwpr.org/).
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### Conclusion
These improvements would strengthen the impact of CCAMPIS and support student parents’ educational success without undermining the program. The IAA may offer the appearance of action, but it does nothing to improve how CCAMPIS functions; instead, it distracts from the concrete changes that would truly strengthen the program for student parents.
Student parents deserve real solutions, not bureaucratic reshuffling. Keeping CCAMPIS anchored at the Department of Education is essential to ensuring they can access the stable, affordable child care they need to complete their education.
https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/ccampis-isnt-duplicative-its-essential-the-admins-transfer-threatens-student-parents/