Massachusetts Early Education and Care Tuition Study
Historically, Massachusetts has conducted market rate analyses of tuition rates for early care and education programs across the Commonwealth in order to determine the amount of childcare financial assistance (CCFA), or state subsidies, to offer families. Recently, Massachusetts was granted federal approval to use an alternative market rate model when setting their CCFA rates. While the effort to shift towards a cost-based methodology to set CCFA rates is underway, the Commonwealth will continue to monitor tuition rates to understand the prices charged to families and to explore how tuition rates compare to the estimated cost of care across Massachusetts.
AIR's Analysis of Tuition Rates
The Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (MA EEC) partnered with AIR to analyze tuition rates across the Commonwealth to produce insights into the childcare market overall and the affordability of care for families. Additionally, AIR conducted a longitudinal analysis of changes in tuition rates over time as well as sub-analyses on program characteristics, such as differences in rates between non-profit and for-profit programs. Information about tuition rates charged to families across the Commonwealth can inform future policy and funding decisions broadly.
To increase MA EEC's capacity for sustained high quality research, AIR will also provide the analysis code for this tuition study and an instruction document around how to update code in future years. The analysis code and instructional document will ensure that that MA EEC can update the tuition study using new data over time and continue to employ this rigorous analysis to support future decision-making.
