This N.J. mom may have to drop out of college one semester away from graduating. Here’s why.
A New Jersey mom one semester away from graduating college says she may have to drop out because of cuts to a federal program that helped pay for her children’s childcare.
It’s a reality that some of the nearly 3.1-million student-parents in colleges across the nation may also face.
For these parents, graduation brings the prospect of higher-paying jobs and with it, more opportunities for their families, but they also face an uphill battle balancing between academic, personal and financial demands.
Chelsa Salesman, a student at Raritan Valley Community College, has lived this reality for years.
After graduating from high school in 2009, she went to college but soon dropped out. Since then, she’s taken on a number of jobs, including running a small business that sold local produce and artisanal products.
The business ended about a year and a half ago at a time, Salesman said, when her life was being turned upside down. The experiences she went through led her to seek a new career in social work, and she is hoping to earn an associate’s degree in that field from Raritan Valley, a two-year college in Somerset County.
The college’s Children’s Campus and the funding that supports it have been a lifeline, Salesman said, as she balances raising two young kids, attending college and working.
“I was like failing out of college in my early 20s, and now I’m a 3.93 GPA,” Salesman said. “It has allowed me to let all that worry go, all the financial stress, and just be like, ‘I am here in school, I’m enjoying it.’
“And it’s really like valuable in that way. And it’s also a really good example for my kids … it’s not about me, it’s about them.”
The Children’s Campus is a preschool and childcare center based on the Raritan Valley campus in Branchburg, Somerset County. Faculty and students can use it at a discounted rate.
It had received funding through a grant from the federal Child Care Access Means Parents in School Program, which is under threat after the “One Big Beautiful Bill” was signed into law by President Donald Trump. The bill did not include funding for the program.
The program was the only federally funded one specifically designed to support childcare for student parents. Students in New Jersey can use the funds for campus-based daycare facilities or to receive vouchers for off-campus centers.
Salesman said she was the first Raritan Valley student to use funds from the federal program to pay for an off-campus daycare that is closer to her work.
An uncertain future
Donna Stolzer, Raritan Valley’s director of media relations, said the college was notified in June that the grant would end on Sept. 30 and was told information about funding from other grants would be provided later this year.
“The Department of Education’s grant has assisted student parents achieve their academic goals,” Stolzer said. “Helping them pay for childcare at the College’s Children’s Campus, and offering them academic support.”
Stolzer said the college was told the current program was not expected to continue and to seek funding through the Child Care Development Block Grant, if it is made available by the federal Department of Education.
Salesman said many people do not realize that the money to help pay for childcare is not just for academic or financial gain, but supports her family’s overall well-being.
“They’re not thinking of how that trickles and ripples down into the improvement of my children’s lives and their future and their access to education in the future and their financial stability,” Salesman said. “All of this is not about me. This isn’t some self-righteous journey. This is I need to improve my children’s lives.”
The Children’s Campus nearly closed once before, in early 2021, until an influx of federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act kept it open. A few months later, the college received funding from a Child Care Access Means Parents in School Program grant.
Now that the grant is gone, Salesman said, the constant financial uncertainty is exhausting and is making her feel hopeless.
“I’m kind of like at this point where I don’t know if I can stay in school financially,” Salesman said. “And that’s really disappointing because I’m literally like a semester and then one class away from graduating.
“And to think that I would have to stop would be heartbreaking.”
Feeling the financial pressure
Salesman said the new funding formulas may not be enough to help her pay for childcare because the New Jersey program that administers the funds only covers a specified amount of childcare costs, leaving parents to pay the difference.
Based on the daycare Salesman uses, she said she may be left paying hundreds more out of pocket for childcare that would have been previously covered. Her children go to a daycare right across from where she works, but if the state aid is not enough, she may have to move to a different location.
“It’s forty minutes commute from my house to work,” Salesman said. “So, it gives me forty times two every day with my kids that I wouldn’t have had before. Time together, which was one of the parts about working, going to school, that’s hard, is that I do have to spend time apart from them.
“I feel very involved in their academics because of it. And it allowed me to have that, that closeness to them. It’s not the cheapest daycare and that’s why I’m so relieved to have had the support.”
Impact of cuts felt statewide
In addition to Raritan Valley, Kean University, New Jersey City University and William Paterson University were awarded a combined $1,454,093 for the 2023-24 Child Care Access Means Parents in School Program grant cycle.
The average grant award for this period in New Jersey was $363,523.25, slightly higher than the national average award of $317,108.
Based on the most recent available data from the Government Accountability Office, the program helped around 3,300 students pay childcare costs for about 4,000 children in 2016-17.
Another 4,200 children were on waiting lists to receive assistance.
The total funding from program grants increased by about 442%, with 179 more awards given, since 2016.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4, the administration calls the program unaffordable and duplicative, recommending the Child Care Development Block Grant as an alternative.
This federal block grant is the main provider of childcare programs for low-income working families. Funds go to the states, which then decide how the money will be distributed.
The Child Care Development Block Grant incorporates the Child Care Entitlement to States program that establishes mandatory childcare funding, whereas the Child Care Access Means Parents in School Program is discretionary spending.
Together, they are commonly called the Child Care and Development Fund.
The NJ Child Care Assistance Program is the agency in New Jersey in charge of dispersing these funds, which had $482.5 million in 2025. These funds help an estimated 70,000 children throughout the year.
Costs keep going up
Childcare is increasingly becoming more expensive, especially for young children and infants. According to Child Care Aware of America, in 2024, it cost a yearly average of $20,213 for an infant in center-based childcare and $19,448 for a toddler in center-based childcare, which amounts to about $1,684 and $1,620 per month. This is up by $3,945 and $4,494, respectively, since 2020.
The 2026 federal budget calls for maintaining current funding levels for various children and family initiatives. The Child Care Development Block Grant will continue to be funded at 2025 levels of about $8.8 billion in addition to programs such as Head Start and Early Head Start and IDEA Part C (Grants for Infants and Families) that will have no change from the previous year’s federal funding.
