Childcare Landscape Study - Flipbook - Page 116
Davidson County Child Care Landscape Study Results
7
Conclusion
Child care market prices (i.e., tuition rates) are constrained by what families can afford to
pay for child care, and tuition rates therefore cannot reflect the true cost of providing highquality child care without pricing families out of the market. The Policy Impact Center and
United Way of Greater Nashville partnered with the Child Care Workgroup, a local group of
community partners and child care experts, to create a cost estimation model that estimates
the true cost of high-quality child care in greater Davidson County.
The cost estimation model reveals the estimated cost of high-quality family home-based
care is $2,158 per month per child for all ages. The monthly true cost of high-quality group
home-based child care in greater Davidson County is $1,669 per child for all ages.
Both market prices and child care certificate reimbursement rates fail to cover the true cost of
high-quality child care. At the 75th percentile of market prices – meaning that 75 percent of
programs charge less in tuition – home-based tuition rates leave a gap of as much as $1,357
per child per month between the tuition rate and the true cost of care. Tennessee’s child care
certificate reimbursement rates leave a gap of up to $1,309 per child per month between the
reimbursement rate and the true cost of care.
The gap left by current market prices and reimbursement rates, combined with families’
limited ability to absorb significantly higher tuition rates, leaves home-based programs with
limited resources. These resource constraints can limit home-based business owners’
profitability, limit the wages they can pay themselves and their staff, and can limit the number
of providers who choose to start or sustain a home-based child care program.
Greater Davidson County currently only has 29 licensed home-based child care programs in
the entire region. Ensuring potential home-based directors have adequate resources to start and
sustain a profitable home-based child care business could be an important step toward
expanding home-based child care in greater Davidson County.
Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center 2026
www.pn3policy.org
