CONCORD, N.H. — As of last month, more than 5,000 New Hampshire children are benefiting from a scholarship program aimed at making child care affordable for families, an official with the state said Thursday.
The latest numbers, presented at a meeting of the New Hampshire Child Care Advisory Council, mark a continued uptick in the use of the Child Care Scholarship Program, a state-federal partnership, following expanded income eligibility last year.
As of October 2024, 4,348 children had been enrolled in the program, according to researchers at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy. (The Couch Family Foundation, which funds the New Hampshire Bulletin’s early care and education reporting position, provided support for this research, and is also a funder of the council.)
In other news shared at the council meeting, the state Department of Health and Human Services continues to await an answer on whether the federal government will allow $15 million in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families reserve funds to go toward a child care workforce grant.
And at the Community College System of New Hampshire, millions from multiple funding sources have now gone toward assisting students with taking early care education courses.
Jotham Spreeman, administrator of operations with the DHHS’ Bureau of Child Development and Head Start Collaboration, called the latest scholarship enrollment numbers “fantastic.” He said another 361 children have been confirmed to be eligible for the scholarship but have not yet been linked with a provider.
Expanded eligibility
In the last budget cycle, lawmakers had expanded eligibility for the scholarship to families making up to 85% of the state median income.
A family of four earning up to $124,595 and a family of three earning $104,660 may now be eligible for the scholarship, said Nicole Heller, senior policy analyst at the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research nonprofit.
In the latest budget passed this legislative session, lawmakers sought to ease administrative burdens for families and providers engaged with the program, with a pilot program that aims to address difficulties completing the application planned to launch in 2026.
As part of the scholarship, families pay a cost-share with the state. For 34% of children enrolled in the program, their families pay nothing, Spreeman said. For 10%, their families pay $5 a week, and for the other 56%, their families pay no more than 7% of their income toward child care, the percentage the federal government deems “affordable.”
The scholarship has historically been underutilized by eligible families, even with recent jumps in enrollment. UNH researchers wrote in February that an estimated 55,000 children in the state under 13 are eligible for the program.
The gap between those eligible for the scholarship and those using it may be attributable to a lack of awareness about the program, as well as paperwork and administrative burdens, researchers said.
Pilot program in place
Lawmakers and advocates hope the pilot program — which, following an initial screening, will grant families a period of presumptive eligibility to use scholarships funds while they complete the application process — will ease some of those burdens.
Another recent change to the scholarship program enacted by lawmakers this year will allow providers who accept scholarship funds to be paid at the beginning of the period of care, rather than the end, said Trina Ingelfinger, the early care and education policy coordinator at New Futures, a health policy advocacy group.
Marianne Barter, the departing chair of the council who runs two child care programs, said “that has been a huge problem for child care providers for a really, really long time.”
“This is really huge,” Barter said, “and should really have a huge impact on cash flow for child care providers.”
While families across the state struggle to afford child care, those who provide that care also often struggle to make ends meet. The median wage for child care workers in the state was $15.62 an hour, or $32,490 annually, in 2023, according to the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute.
Adjusted for cost of living, those are the second-lowest wages for child care workers in the country, according to a 2018 report from the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley. Retaining workers is a challenge in the state, further stressing the availability of care.
Funds distributed
In the 2025 fiscal year, $15 million in one-time state funds was distributed to support the child care workforce, according to the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute. These funds supported benefits and bonuses for child care workers, among other uses.
Lawmakers hoped to use the TANF reserve funds to put another $15 million toward the workforce grant in this budget. Spreeman told the council that the letter requesting to use the funds for that purpose had been sent to the federal Administration for Children and Families but had not yet received a response.
In other workforce developments, representatives of the Community College System of New Hampshire shared updates on a grant program that offers tuition assistance for those on the early care and education path.
Teri Laflamme, the system’s early childhood education tuition assistance coordinator, said that the system had awarded over $3,200,000 in scholarships for 5,931 early care and education-connected courses since the fall of 2023.
Applications for the fall 2025 term were still open, she said.
New Hampshire Bulletin is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.