Tarrant County colleges offer on-site child care for students. Here’s why it matters
At the University of Texas at Arlington, college students seeking bachelor and graduate degrees study at Central Library, exercise at the Maverick Activities Center and watch sports events at Maverick Stadium. Also on campus, there’s a spot where younger students — more than a decade away from starting their college careers — are learning their colors, numbers and ABC’s.
Arlington Child Development Center, at 1120 UTA Blvd., mostly resembles any other community child care space, serving children 6 weeks old to 5 years old. But the center prioritizes registration for UTA students and staff, reserving up to 35 slots in the fall and spring semesters and 20 slots in the summer. Eligible students can receive financial assistance through UTA to help pay for child care tuition, which comes out to less than $100 a week for the parent. This setup is among a handful of ways local colleges in Tarrant County are contributing to their students’ child care needs in some shape or form.
“Students who are attending classes full-time at UTA and receiving financial aid can apply for a child care tuition scholarship offered through the university. This semester, 18 students have scholarships providing full-time care for their children, thanks to UTA,” according to Center for Transforming Lives spokesperson Trish Rodriguez. The Fort Worth-based nonprofit operates the Arlington Child Development Center.
The center opened in 2012, but UTA and the Center for Transforming Lives have partnered for more than two decades, Rodriguez said.
“We really work a lot with moms who have experienced homelessness or are experiencing poverty, and being able to provide support for them through early childhood education so that they can further their education really breaks that cycle,” Rodriguez said.
Center Director Xzynthia Tisby said she finds the student-parents at the center to be notably engaged. They offer to volunteer to read to the children, prepare meals and help teachers when they can.
“It’s good because we’re able to go and recruit on the campus and let the students know that we’re here to support and serve the children, their families, whatever they’re needing. And so that was a big piece that I took on, too, to make sure that we go and recruit on the campus to let them know that we’re here,” Tisby said.
Takashja Ivory, a parent enrolled in UTA’s Bachelor of Social Work program, has a 2-year-old daughter who’s been enrolled at the center for about six months after Ivory moved to campus in the fall semester. She typically drops off her daughter at the center by 9 a.m. after she drops off her 12-year-old son at school and picks up her daughter around 5-5:30 p.m. This semester is the first time Ivory has been able to take on a full-time course load because of the access to child care. Now, she’s able to focus on her school work and connect with her professors without interruptions, she said.
After sitting in limbo on the state’s subsidy wait list — which has about 78,000 children — for more than a year, she was able to receive the financial assistance she needed to enroll her daughter through UTA. Without the center’s proximity to her home and schooling and without the child care scholarship, Ivory said her situation might look completely different.
“I don’t know if I’d still be here, honestly,” she said. “I just know that, had that not come through for me at the time that it came through, in the way that it came through, I don’t know that I would have persisted. I don’t know that I would have managed through this semester.”
University of North Texas Health Science Center
UTA isn’t the only local college to offer on-site child care. The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth has an Early Learning Center for children who are 6 weeks old to 5 years old. The college, near Fort Worth’s Cultural District, has partnered with nonprofit Lena Pope since 2018 to predominantly serve students and staff members. Sliding scale rates are available for qualifying families based on their income and family size.
Lena Pope CEO Ashley Elgin said up to 70% of slots can be reserved for the Health Science Center students and employees, but the percentage is currently at 58%. The remaining percentage accounts for general community members. The center’s business model also prioritizes 40% of slots for low-income families who receive a state subsidy or flexible rate.
“Their student population and staff population mirrors that of the community, so they also have employees and students who do need that flexible rate due to their income levels. That’s helpful in making sure that we can apply high-quality services to everyone nearby,” Elgin said. “We do want our families to have the ability to be in the workforce, and if they’re unable to do that due to child care costs, we’re sort of crippling our economy in one way or another.”
Jeanie Foster, associate vice president of the HSC Office of Culture & Experience, said in a statement that providing accessible, affordable and high-quality child care for students and staff is part of a larger mission to become “one of the top places to work in Fort Worth.”
“Partnering with Lena Pope aligns with our mission and values, as its proven history of providing quality education cultivates opportunities for learning, creating, discovering, and innovating. Offering a space where our team members can visit their children during the day reflects our dedication to fostering a supportive workplace while advancing our mission to create solutions for a healthier community,” she said.
Serah Sulaiman, who recently graduated from the Health Science Center’s physician assistant studies program, said her children attended the on-campus Early Learning Center together for about 18 months. She heard good reviews about it from one of her professors and was also impressed by the existence of a wait list, which showed her it was well-sought by parents.
“It was super convenient,” she said, noting she had about an eight-hour window to go to classes and study while her children were at the center.
“It’s hard, it’s not easy. But it’s worth it,” she said of being a student-parent. “It makes it 10 times easier if child care is right there on campus, and it’s with people you know you can trust.”
Sean Sondreal, chief business development officer of the Learning Care Group, said he will work with an employer, college or university to help them determine if they want to build on-site child care or if they want to partner with existing child care centers in the community based on their needs and resources. Sondreal, who oversees campus child care and other on-site centers nationwide, said COVID-19 disrupted the child care market in a way that caused many businesses to shut down and increased operating and building costs. The demand has exceeded the supply, and colleges and universities have recognized this.
They want more control in the volatile market of child care, he said.
“We often see an organization approach us with what might not have been an issue four or five years ago, that is an issue today. We’re seeing it across every element of the business that I operate — where we work with employers, colleges, universities and such — where demand has spiked and really hasn’t slowed down since,” he said. “I’ve never been as busy, and as a team, we’ve never been as busy as we are today — helping a myriad of different industries solve this.”
Texas Wesleyan University, TCU & Tarrant County College
Texas Wesleyan University, located in Fort Worth’s Polytechnic Heights neighborhood, offers students the option to request an adjustment in their cost of attendance for up to $10,000 so they can garner more federal loan funding to put toward child care costs. Graduate students utilize this option more often than undergraduates do, said university spokesperson Karen Cantrell.
For example, if a student’s typical cost of attendance is $60,000, they can’t be awarded financial aid above this amount. But if the student provides documentation showing they pay, for example, $10,000 in child care costs throughout an academic year, their cost of attendance can be raised to $70,000.
“The student would have more room in their cost of attendance for a larger loan,” Cantrell said. “We have the largest (Doctor of Nurse Anesthesia Practice) program in the nation, and traditionally these students who are earning their doctorate must attend class full-time. Traditionally, these students are older and have children and need that extra financial support for child care expenses.”
In fall 2019, TCU’s Graduate Student Senate published a report highlighting student-parents’ lack of access to high-quality child care, especially for those who are eligible for the Pell Grant. The Pell Grant program is the largest federal grant program in the U.S. that provides financial aid to low-income students for school. The report notes on-campus child care or child care subsidies “are common among many peer and aspirant universities, including those with similar numbers of Pell-eligible parents.”
The report also notes TCU child care initiatives, as early as 1973, have proposed constructing an on-campus center, but those initiatives were “met with much resistance.”
“These documented responses suggest agreement between advocates and leadership about the need for some kind of child-care assistance but disagreement on how to prioritize addressing the need in a cost-effective way,” the report states. “We propose that TCU prioritize the child-care needs of Pell-eligible parents by developing a CCAMPIS-funded subsidy program for qualifying parents to use high-quality, off-campus child care centers. Such a program would be an evidence-based, cost-effective solution to the problem of child-care access for these students.”
CCAMPIS, or the federal Child Care Access Means Parents in School program, provides financial support to student-parents. Currently, it’s unclear whether this program will remain intact as President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order to begin the process of dismantling the U.S. Department of Education.
Almost six years later, TCU officials have yet to implement the proposal laid out in the Graduate Student Senate report. A TCU spokesperson confirmed the university currently does not offer traditional on-campus child care nor subsidies for off-campus care. TCU does have a KinderFrogs school, which is an early intervention program serving children with Down syndrome and other developmental delays.
Tarrant County College, in contrast, had offered child care assistance to students through CCAMPIS from 2019 to 2024. The college website states the funding ended on Aug. 2, and “TCC is actively exploring financial support options for the future.” College officials did not respond to the Star-Telegram when asked what prompted the pause of this funding.
TCC currently contracts with the Learning Care Group to provide off-site child care for eligible students, according to Sondreal. It operates 36 centers in Tarrant County and 15 centers in Fort Worth.
The college plans to open two child care centers this year on its South and Northwest campuses in partnership with Child Care Associates, one of the largest child development nonprofits in the state. The $12.1 million project came forward after the Tarrant County Commissioners Court allocated more than $8 million last year in American Rescue Plan funds toward it. The centers will serve children of students, faculty and the community at large.
They will also focus on serving infants and toddlers through Early Head Start, a federal program that provides free child care and development services for children under 3 years old from low-income families. Preschool services will also be available.
In a February 2024 press release, Tarrant County College Chancellor Elva LeBlanc said the centers would set up families for success.
“When our student-parents succeed, their children succeed and our community thrives,” LeBlanc said. “No student should have to abandon the college dream because of rising child care costs or lack of access to quality options. With quality child care centers right on our own campuses, TCCD Trailblazers won’t have to.”
CEO and President Kara Waddell said at the time that Child Care Associates was thrilled to provide these child care services on Tarrant County College campuses.
“With 55 years of experience serving families with young children in our community, we’re thrilled to provide the developmentally appropriate services children need to thrive while also meeting the needs of parents earning a credential or degree or who are working. Together with TCCD, we’re building a two-generation pipeline of talent,” Waddell said.
Officials from Tarrant County College or Child Care Associates did not respond to the Star-Telegram’s questions about the updated timeline of the incoming centers.
Tarrant County College previously had a child care center and laboratory school for students on its Northeast campus in Hurst for 50 years, but it abruptly closed in October amid state and local investigations. College officials only gave parents a few days’ notice of the decision but said it was a necessary decision.
