How Much You Will PAY for Daycare
Childcare or daycare for babies and toddlers is more expensive than childcare for older kids. This is because younger kids need more hands-on care. Some daycare provide formalized academic preschool curriculum, while others take a less formal approach. Some programs offer field trips while others don’t transport preschool-aged youngsters anywhere for safety and liability reasons.
Monthly Tuition Range for Early Childhood Education
Infant’s $1,900 – $2,500
Toddler’s: $1,750 – $2,400
Preschool / PreK: $1,700 – $2,300
Range Private Kindergarten: $1,850 – $2,400
Additional Costs and Fees or All Inclusive?
When weighing the cost of daycare, some fees/services may or may not be included.
Meals:
Some daycare centers provide all snacks and meals while others require parents to pack their child’s lunch daily. Karter Schools provides hot meals and multiple nutritious snacks throughout the day. They only use high quality ingredients, like fresh fruits and vegetables.
If your child’s school is providing meals, below are some key questions to ask regarding the quality of the meals provided.
- Does the daycare offer fresh fruits and vegetables?
- Do they have an on-site chef who is preparing everything?
- Does it come catered from a large corporate catering company?
- Are they only offering peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or hot meals?
- Do they adhere to dietary and allergy regulations?
- Is the daycare a nut free facility?
Extracurricular Activities:
Some daycare centers build in extracurricular activities that are age-appropriate within the day as part of the service offered to families. While others allow parents to elect to put their kid in gymnastics, karate, art or even second language instruction for an extra fee. At Karter Schools, we provide 4+ enrichment classes that are included in your child’s tuition. These include: foreign language, music, dance, science and robotics.
Schools who do not have the teachers to provide those activities will often outsource music, dance, karate or even Spanish class for their families.
Below are some key questions to ask regarding extracurricular activities hosted at your child’s daycare.
- How much is the extracurricular class?
- Is it a company or an individual person coming to teach the class?
- Is it always the same person teaching the class each week?
- Do they have enough training to teach my 2 year old?
Lastly, when it comes to cost of care, look for centers that provide the most value and convenience such as all meals and extra activities included. In general higher quality care teachers, curriculum, long teacher retention will not be the least expensive. When it comes to childcare, you get what you pay for.
