By
Erin Mahoney
Arizona Daily Wildcat
UA working toward child-care center, increased subsidies
It was nearly two years ago that UA President Peter Likins showed up for an ASUA Senate meeting and came face-to-face with a small band of angry student parents and their children.
The 10 students had a simple plan - to convince Likins that the university's child-care subsidies were inadequate, and to lobby for an on-campus child-care center.
It worked.
Five semesters later, child-care subsidies for student parents have skyrocketed - from $12,500 annually in 1998 to nearly $100,000 this year - and administrators have created a committee to raise money for an on-campus child care center.
ASUA President Ben Graff, then a senator, remembers the meeting as a catalyst for the child-care issue.
"That night... that was the night that everything started," Graff said.
The battle, however, is not over.
"We need to step it up a little bit," said Mimi Gray, director of planning for the UA's Child Development Center Project, an office created last year under the provost. "The University of Arizona is making up for lost time, and they're doing it in a very strategic way. But not everyone at the UA is on board."
The idea behind the project, Gray said, is to find private funding for a UA-owned child care center. The center would serve faculty, staff, and students, and would offer scholarships to offset its charges, which would be comparable to other child-care services, she said.
The center would aim to go beyond traditional forms of child care, Gray said. For example, the center would provide a site for faculty research, and could spur the creation of new Masters' and Ph.D programs for early education.
"We're trying very hard to turn this into a community change agency," said Gray, who also served as the UA's coordinator for child care from 1994 to 1999. "Our goal is to make it flexible."
The UA's center, which is expected to cost more than $4 million, could set an example for other facilities in the city, Gray said, and could provide an "exemplary" model of education. But nothing can happen until funds are secured.
ASUA Sen. Danielle Roberts wants to see it happen. Roberts, herself a student parent, was elected to the Senate on a platform that included support for others in her situation.
"People are really wrapped up in the cost of the facility," Roberts said. "They're not getting past the point that it would be a really great benefit to the community."
The money search
Likins, however, said he is torn between the need for a child-care center and increasing demand for child-care subsidies.
"My support for our own facility is gradually being overtakin by the realization of the magnitude of the need," he said in an e-mail interview.
UA spokeswoman Sharon Kha said she agrees that child care is vital to a modern university.
"The population of our students has changed so much," Kha said. "Providing help with child care is almost as important as providing residence halls to live in."
But the UA can't spare the $4 million to $5 million needed for the project, Kha said.
"The university is doing all it can afford to do," she said. "No organization in America would say they have adequate child care for their employees or their students. It's just a huge problem facing America."
State legislators are unlikely to provide funds for child care because subsidies and facilities are not considered necessary to a college education, Kha said.
"The Legislature sees its primary job as providing the basic educational requirements," she said. "It would probably see child care as not among the basic requirements."
Gray agreed.
"The legislators aren't going to give you money for child care," she said.
Instead, the Child Development Center project team is turning to a new avenue for funding - Campaign Arizona.
The campaign, spearheaded by Likins, aims to raise over $500 million in private donations for various parts of the university. Gray said she hopes a few million will find its way to the child care center.
"There's plenty (of money)," Gray said. "We just have to find it."
Graff - who, as ASUA president, sits on several committees relating to the gift campaign - said it's possible.
"It's all about showing the specific need to the donors or donor," he said. "I really do think it's doable, but you have to find the donors."
Gray said it isn't feasible to cut costs by using an already-constructed campus building.
"Let's hope we never have to do that," she said. "We don't have buildings suitable for young children."
Meeting the demand
The center has another benefit for UA administrators, Gray said - it can secure much-needed money for student child care subsidies.
Two years ago, Congress allocated $5 million to help students pay for child care. This year, the amount doubled, to $10 million, Gray said.
Eighty-four schools netted money to help with student child care, Gray said. The UA, however, was not eligible because it doesn't have its own facility.
"This is a sign that child care is a very real barrier to students," she added.
The UA provides nearly $100,000 annually for student parents to offset child care costs. In order to qualify, an applicant must be taking a full course load and be on financial aid, Gray said. The subsidies cover up to 50 percent of costs as long as the child is cared for by a licensed provider or certified facility.
Two years ago, the $12,500 annual subsidy budget aided just over a dozen students, leaving hundreds of others on the waiting list. Today, the UA can subsidize how many student parents.
Roberts, a computer science and mathematics junior, qualified for the subsidy last year, but hasn't been able to secure a spot on the funding list this semester. She pays around $95 each week for her 2-year-old daughter's day care.
"I wouldn't come out and say it's the university's responsibility to take care of my kids," said Roberts, who is expecting another child in November. "But I do think it's the university's responsibility to make things comfortable for students."
Although the UA's subsidies have increased dramatically since 1998, the $100,000 budget still falls short of the roughly $160,000 needed to accommodate all those who apply, Graff said.
He said he intends to keep pressure on Likins and other administrators to increase the subsidy to $120,000 this year.
"When it comes to the child care program, it's been ASUA that's been the impetus," Graff said. "If the administration needs another knock at the door, I'm willing to do that."
Last year, ASUA senators and then-ASUA President Cisco Aguilar contributed $5,000 from their own budgets to the child-care subsidy program, something Graff hopes will stick in administrators' minds.
"Last year, it was important for us to turn some heads," he said. "(But) it shouldn't be students supporting students; it should be the university supporting students."
Roberts agreed. As a parent, she said she sympathizes with other students who pay for child care. But as a senator, she said she recognizes that the child-care issue does not affect everyone.
"It's a hard thing being a student parent. It's a hard thing being a student," she said. "I just wish everyone could recognize everyone else's needs."
Hope for the future
More than financial support, Graff said, ASUA needs to pressure administrators to consider student parents' issues.
"There hasn't been a meeting between Dr. Likins and myself where we haven't discussed child care," Graff said. "I feel it's an area we can do more."
Student parents need to see adequate subsidies more than anything else, Likins said.
"We have some hard choices to make in the future," he said. "Incremental increases in the childcare subsidy have been the correct solution to date."
Gray said although there is plenty of progress to be made, she was impressed with administrators' attention to child-care issues.
"It's really big that they've committed the dollars for me to do this," she said. "We need to keep this on the front burner."
Graff said the student Senate won't back off anytime soon, even after he and Roberts have left ASUA.
"I am making it my personal responsibility to pass that torch to the next student body president," he said. "And it's not a hard torch to pass."
The university has come a long way, Graff said, from the angry group of parents that confronted Likins in 1998.
Roberts certainly isn't angry. She said although she thinks the university could do more, the UA's actions in recent years have given her - and other student parents - reason to hope.
"I think what might have been driving student parents out of the university was the feeling that they weren't being recognized," she said. "(Now) it's been really encouraging. If nothing else, that's a reason to stick around."
