Education or Family: Is Georgia childcare more expensive than college tuition?

Sam Sachs
·3 min read

Making a budget is much more complicated while raising a family or going to college. When you weigh how to build a future, whether it includes going to college, finding a new job or starting a family, cost obviously weighs into your decision.

Georgia legislators are currently exploring ways to bring costs to residents down in Georgia with focuses on education, property taxes, and other forms of tax relief. They’ve also pushed legislation to

So, in the Peach State, is college tuition cheaper than childcare?

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The cost of the average college or university tuition in the state of Georgia for a public institution can range between $1,425 to $4,474 per semester if an in-state tuition student takes 15 credit hours, or between $2,850 to $8,948 per year. That doesn’t account for institution-specific fees and costs for various on-campus services.

Strictly going by tuition pricing for a 15-credit hour per semester, public education in Georgia can cost between $237.50 and $745.66 per month, based on the FY2024, in-state tuition costs published by the University System of Georgia.

The Economic Policy Institute analyzed childcare costs by county and found that the average cost of childcare across the state of Georgia, the data was compiled from the statistics published by the U.S. Department of Labor’s National Database of Childcare Prices.

It covered all age groups from infants to school-aged students, showing that it can cost anywhere from $5,448 to $20,832 a year.

For the whole range, and across both in-home or out-of-home childcare, costs were an average $11,739, annually.

When divided evenly, childcare costs for Georgians average $978.25, every month, based on the EPI analysis of labor department data.

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“These prices represent between 8% and 19.3% of median family income per child,” USDOL said. Adjusted for inflation, USDOL said the national average cost of childcare could range between $5,357 and $17,171, depending on where you lived and how old your children were, due to population size.

Looking at price, the Dept. of Labor included variations where the costs differed by county, age group and type of care, between a care center or care at home. The report the data comes from was published in 2023 and calls childcare costs “untenable for families.”

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau said “childcare prices in the United States vary substantially based on type of childcare provider, quality of care provided, age of children served and geographic location.”

For a broader analysis of college or university costs, an examination of student loan costs in Georgia was a reported $312 per month according to Student Loan Planner, a site focused on data and repayment trends.

The broader focus is necessary for student loans because the payments cover overall college cost, which includes fees, on-campus services and on-campus housing, such as dorm rooms and meal plans, typically.

While not every student lives on campus, a majority tend to and a majority of USG institutions require students to have a meal plan while living on campus.

Based on the numbers available, childcare is more expensive for the average Georgian than paying for college.

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