Yes, college is expensive. But according to new data from the Economic Policy Institute, in nearly half the nation, it’s now more expensive to educate a four year old in preschool than an eighteen year old in college.
As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the data indicate that in twenty-three states, the annual cost of care for a four year old at a full-time daycare center or school is greater than the average cost of in-state tuition at a four-year institution.
In Massachusetts, the state with the nation’s highest childcare costs, care for a preschooler approaches twelve thousand eight hundred dollars annually, or almost twenty percent more than an undergraduate’s average tuition of less than eleven thousand dollars.
In Florida, care for a four year old is seventy three percent more expensive than college. Florida is home to among the country’s lowest college tuition costs. In Maryland, the cost of full-time preschool for a four year old is about ninety one hundred dollars.
That compares to about eighty three hundred dollars for annual instate college tuition, which means that childcare here is about nine percent more expensive than college.
