Cost Of Child Care Is On The Rise

DENVER (CBS4) - The cost of child care can cost more than college. That depends on where you live, but no matter where that is, child care costs a pretty penny.

If you've been worried about how you were going to pay for college, you might want to shift your focus and worry about how you're going to pay for day care. Some new research is showing that child care and all its associated costs hasn't been getting the recognition it deserves when it comes to how much it's really costing parents.

The average child care costs has gone up over 3 percent since last year. The cost of taking care of an infant in child care costs more than paying rent in nearly half the states. And if you have two children in day care, the costs exceed the amount of rent you'll pay in all 50 states.

It definitely depends on which part of the country you reside as to how deep you'll reach in your pocket. Full-time care for an infant in Massachusetts costs $16,430 a year, but in Mississippi full-time care for an infant costs $4,863. Why such huge price disparities? Blame it on differences in labor costs, state regulations and cost of living expenses.

The least affordable states for child care are New York with just over 16 percent of median income going to day care. In Massachusetts it's just over 15 percent of median income. Next is Minnesota at 15.5 percent. Colorado comes in at 15 percent of median income paid out in child care followed up by California with 14.8 percent.

In almost 75 percent of the country the average costs of child care is greater than the yearly tuition and fees at a four-year public college.