The trade-off for helping more families afford childcare? Skyrocketing bills for parents.

Low-income parents who rely on state-funded childcare scholarships will face higher bills as soon as January — some by more than $100 a week.

Akin to a voucher, Maryland’s Child Care Scholarship Program helps parents of more than 40,000 children pay for daycare. Families are eligible for scholarships based on income and household size — a family of four earning up to $111,936 can qualify.

But the scholarship became so popular — and so expensive — that in 2025 the state had to limit the number of kids it could support. Now, in an effort to offer more scholarships, the Maryland State Department of Education will ask families to chip in more.

As early as January, scholarship families who are used to making copayments of between $1 and $3 a week will be asked to pay $10.58 to $106.74, depending on their income. State education department officials estimate those contributions will allow them to grant scholarships to 3,000 families on the state’s waitlist in coming years. But the higher daycare bills, advocates say, could prompt some parents to leave the workforce or sacrifice paying other bills to keep their kids in childcare.

“For those families who are suddenly paying very high copayments, that’s a real burden,” said Karen Schulman, senior director of state childcare policy at the National Women’s Law Center. “Those are the trade-offs the state is left with when they’re trying to balance these competing needs with a limited amount of resources.”

Maryland is among 23 states and Washington, D.C., with waitlists for childcare assistance, according to the Associated Press. In 2023, only eight states had waitlists. They’ve ballooned since federal pandemic aid expired in fall 2024 and often reflect a fraction of real need, as parents may be intimidated by applying for help — if they even know it exists, Schulman said.

Maryland’s waitlist sits at about 6,000 kids.

As of February, 40,449 children were receiving scholarships, according to AP data, down by about 7,000 from the program’s peak in June 2025. For several months starting last year, the state stopped granting new scholarships to all but the neediest families, like those already receiving other government cash assistance, while officials waited for the numbers to drop as kids aged out or left the program.

After years of record funding, state lawmakers put an extra $20 million toward the program during the last legislative session. That, combined with higher copays, could result in up to 1,000 extra scholarships this fiscal year, said Maryland State Department of Education spokesperson Cherie Duvall-Jones.

It could rise to 3,000 additional scholarships in fiscal year 2028, said Sarah Neville-Morgan, assistant state superintendent for the division of early childhood. She told Maryland State Board of Education members, who approved the department’s plan in August, that the changes are designed “to protect the long-term financial health of the program.”

Copayments will depend on a family’s income, the number of kids in care, and the number of required hours of care. Families at or below 100% of the federal poverty level — or $33,000 annually for a family of four — won’t pay at all; the same goes for families receiving certain government benefits, like food stamps and federal housing vouchers.

If there are a lot of low-income families paying little or nothing toward the program, government savings could be limited, said Schulman, who has studied childcare policy for over 25 years.

Del. Julie Palakovich Carr, who sponsored the bill that authorized higher copayments, said she hopes the changes will eventually end the waitlist.

Increased copayments won’t hit before Jan. 1, and the bill requires the state education department to give families at least 90 days’ notice, Duvall-Jones said. Families who come off the waitlist after the change will start paying the new copayments immediately. Higher copayments will be phased in for families already on scholarship.

“We’re asking more of families who don’t necessarily have a lot,” Palakovich Carr said. “But on the other hand, there were just so many families and so many kids who were frozen out of the program, and there was not relief coming in the foreseeable future.”

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.