Preschool for All?

In most American school districts, public, government-funded or government-run education begins with kindergarten. Studies have linked preschool attendance and professional childcare for children ages four and below, also called early childhood education (ECE), to increased high school graduation rates and superior employment outcomes. These benefits, however, come at a significant cost, one that many families cannot bear.

The Federal Reserve estimates that, in 2025, the median monthly cost of childcare was $1,083. On their estimate, families requiring 20 or more hours of childcare per week paid a median cost of approximately $1,517. Analysts have estimated that childcare costs push over a hundred thousand families into poverty annually.

The mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, has stated a goal of establishing universal early childhood education in New York City, and city officials have expanded subsidized preschool and childcare programs. In addition to New York City, many states have implemented some form of public preschool program. 37 percent of 4-year olds and 9 percent of 3-year olds are enrolled in state funded pre-schools, according to the National Institute of Early Education Research (NIEER). Only six states do not have a preschool program as defined by the NIEER, though there are wide disparities in coverage between states and ages.

Government subsidized ECE is not new. Head Start is a federally funded program that began in 1965 which, among other services, provides early education subsidies to qualifying low-income families. The universal programs in many American states and localities, however, differ from Head Start by offering seats to families across the income distribution, rather than being a targeted anti-poverty measure.

According to some researchers, government ECE programs also carry a host of long- and short-term economic effects. In the short-term, these programs lower the cost of parenthood by offering a free alternative to private childcare and allow parents or caregivers to earn income instead of caring for a child. Longer term, some research suggests that subsidized ECE increases high school graduation rates and college attendance, while also reducing disciplinary incidences. There is no consensus among researchers about these programs’ impacts on child development, however. Various studies have shown these programs having no impact or even negative impacts on children’s education.

In this week’s Saturday Seminar, experts examine the impacts, issues, and benefits of public early childhood education systems.

• In a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, Maya Rossin-Slater, Adrienne Sabety, and Aileen Wu of Stanford University find that public preschool serves as a gateway to health and social services for low-income children enrolled in Medicaid. They highlight that children who enter preschool earlier are more likely to receive developmental evaluations, therapeutic services, and vision and dental care, suggesting that schools facilitate earlier identification of behavioral and developmental conditions that might otherwise go undetected. Rossin-Slater, Sabety, and Wu conclude that their findings may indicate that expanding access to public preschool can improve children’s connections to healthcare systems and promote earlier intervention for conditions that affect long-term health and educational outcomes.
• In a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, John Eric Humphries and several coauthors use data from a single, full-day, public preschool program in New Haven, Connecticut, to estimate the program’s impact on parental labor market outcomes and on children’s academic performance. Although the authors find little effect on student outcomes, their analysis suggests that the program led to significant increases in both hours worked and total earnings. The authors conclude that every dollar in costs spent on public preschool programs returns more than $6 in benefits, most of which is attributable to positive impacts on parents’ employment outcomes. Humphries further contends that, in terms of cost-benefit analysis, preschool programs should be thought of as labor policies for adults.
• In an article for the Review of Economics of the Household, Eunho Cha analyzes the impact of New York City’s 3-K for All program, which offers full-day education for students ages 3 and older on a by-application basis, on family economics. Cha found that the 3-K program raises maternal employment but does not raise the income-to-needs ratio, which measures income against a poverty threshold. Cha explains that this finding results from the program not covering mothers’ working schedules, causing families to purchase additional childcare. Families in the program, however, experienced a 22 percent decrease in likelihood of material hardship (conditions such as food insecurity, housing insecurity, or unmedical needs, among others), suggesting the program improves family economics through non-income means.
• In a working paper for the E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, Chloe Gibbs assesses the Head Start program’s effectiveness, measures of ECE program effectiveness, and its implications for public ECE. Gibbs argues that ECE programs should not be assessed based on short-term impacts on test scores, as there is a documented pattern of short-term gains “fading out.” Instead, Gibbs contends that ECE programs be counterfactually assessed against alternatives in the absence of a program. The working paper also discusses the inherent difficulties in assessing the long run impacts of ECE programs due to the number of shifting variables in both a child’s development and the shifting conditions of the United States.
• In a Manhattan Institute report, Nicole Stelle Garnett, Tim Rosenberger, and Theodore Austin argue that many publicly funded preschool programs continue to discriminate against faith-based providers despite recent Supreme Court decisions requiring governments to treat religious and secular organizations equally. The authors contend that state and local programs often exclude religious providers from participating in publicly funded preschool programs or require them to remove religious instruction and practices as a condition of receiving public funding. They argue that these restrictions limit parental choice and reduce access to high-quality early childhood education. The report concludes that states and school districts should revise their pre-K policies to comply with the First Amendment and ensure equal treatment of religious providers.
• In an Annenberg Institute report, Anamarie A. Whitaker and several coauthors examine the seemingly declining effectiveness of preschool programs and identify potential causes. According to Whitaker, modern research shows the benefits of preschool programs declining or fading out in early elementary school and have inconsistent long-term results. These findings contrast decades old research, which showed strong benefits that carried into adulthood. Whitaker and her coauthors identify the general improvement in baseline conditions for families through welfare methods as a possible explanation for why preschool programs no longer have outsize positive impacts. They also identify the shift away from hands-on activity as a possible explanation. Whitaker stresses that further research into these programs is crucial to improving their effectiveness.