Case Study: North Central Michigan College (NCMC) in Rural Michigan 

Parents make up about 1 in 5 college students today. The Child Care Access Means Parents in Schools (CCAMPIS) program is critical for parenting students to complete college and get a family-sustaining job, so they won’t be dependent on social services later in life. CCAMPIS also helps young children start kindergarten ready to learn and prevents them from falling behind in the long term.

Located in rural Emmet County, MI, NCMC won its four-year CCAMPIS grant in 2023. To learn more about how CCAMPIS works on the ground in a rural area, I reached out to hear stories from community college leaders and parenting students at North Central Michigan College (NCMC) in Petoskey, Michigan

“[One student] would enroll in classes and then she would drop them before the semester started. She a handful of times enrolled in classes, and would attempt many classes and then maybe successfully finish one, and withdraw from the others throughout the semester. So she had done that for quite a few semesters, trying to make it out of the situation she's in right now, without the ability to make progress, and just couldn't make it work. 

“When I first came on into this role, I found her name, saw her story, saw that she had enrolled in classes and that she had dropped out of classes, I reached out to her. Sure enough her main concern – the barrier to her being able to complete school – was childcare.”

CCAMPIS Grant at NCMC – Supporting Parenting Student College Completion

NCMC first received its four-year CCAMPIS competitive grant in 2023. The college uses the four-year, $490,569 annual grant to provide all 200 parenting students with intensive advising, a supporting community of parenting students, and help finding child care that meets their class and work schedules.

Professor Wixson said that when applying for the CCAMPIS grant, NCMC wanted to ensure “that student parents had just a one-stop shop. They were not going to have to go to their advisor and then go to a counselor and then go to a support services person, because they just didn't have time – especially if they had their kids in tow.”

NCMC has a Student Parent Advisory Group, where student parents design activities to support each other and improve a sense of belonging on campus. NCMC’s Family-Friendly Campus Initiative opens areas on campus where students and their kids can be together. NCMC’s on-campus early learning center currently only has 12 spots, including for infants, toddlers, and three-year-olds. CCAMPIS directly funds child care slots for two student parents in the on-campus center, and 14 others to get child care support in community-based child care settings. 

CCAMPIS advising also helps student parents apply for other forms of child care, including a voucher through the federal Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), known in Michigan as Child Development and Care (CDC) Scholarship.

NCMC is also using the CCAMPIS grant to open a short-term and drop-in child care program beginning by fall 2026. This arrangement can be helpful for students attending community college part-time, who are juggling work and parenting and may not need a full 40-hour child care spot.

In its first year, CCAMPIS provided child care scholarships covering the full cost of care for a small number of students. NCMC hopes to expand to serve more students with CCAMPIS scholarships by initiating a sliding fee scale based on credits enrolled:For students enrolled in 6-7 credits per semester, CCAMPIS will cover 70 percent

• For students enrolled in 6-7 credits per semester, CCAMPIS will cover 70 percent

• For students enrolled in 8-11 credits, CCAMPIS will cover 85 percent

• For students enrolled in 12 or more credits, CCAMPIS will cover 100 percent.

Professor Wixson explained, “That first year is all about planning of that CCAMPIS grant, the second and third years [are] about implementation, and that third and fourth year is figuring out how do we sustain it.” 

Michaela’s Story

Michaela is currently a nursing assistant at the local hospital. She was taking part-time classes at NCMC, but due to child care challenges, she had trouble completing her coursework.

Thanks to the CCAMPIS grant’s intensive academic advising for student-parents, the advisor helped Michaela and her partner enroll their kids into a local preschool program. However, the off-campus program is only a few hours per week, so the CCAMPIS funding helps pay for child care after the preschool program ends and on Fridays.

“Kristin [Jardine, NCMC CCAMPIS Advisor] has been great on offering just about any help that’s needed. They can help if you need food, they have diapers there for student parents. The library also has many things that can help with parents that are trying to study. They have little sectioned-off booths where you can put your kid in the little cubby with you so you can kind of confine them and know where they’re at, along with having a computer to do your homework or study if needed. They have nice little toys for each age group and range.

Now Michaela only has three more semesters, and she is on track to complete her nursing degree. 

Jimmy’s Story

Jimmy H is a NCMC associate’s degree candidate.

Jimmy said, “I want to further my career as a substance abuse counselor. You know, essentially I have three jobs. I’m a student, I’m a parent, and I’m an employee. …

“The resources at North Central have been fantastic. Starting with the Pell Grant…. I’ve been going for almost four years. Not only are they covering my child care costs, but they are available to assist my wife and I with locating child care.” 

Another NCMC Student Parent’s Story

CCAMPIS Advisor Kristin Jardine also told about a third NCMC student: 

“She's a single parent, and her experience was that she attempted to come to school. Many times she would enroll, and then withdraw, drop the classes before the semester started, not being able to find a way to make it work. She works in the medical field and has a little one, and so we saw that pattern…

“She was hardly able to figure out how to keep her job with her child care needs at the time. And she did not have access to quality child care either. She had random family friends and people that were able to help one [hour] here and there. She just did not have a good pool of support and resources…

“She's one of those parents that do not qualify for the Child Care and Development Block Grant voucher [aka Michigan Child Development and Care (CDC) Scholarship] as a single parent working. And as a medical assistant, she makes just too much as a family of two to qualify for the CDC... And so in her experience what [CCAMPIS] allowed her to do is since the onset of CCAMPIS funding, we help fund her child care, and she is able to work a full-time job. She takes three classes a semester and is a very successful student.

“She will graduate this May with her associate's degree going on to her bachelor's in social work right after, and she'll be able to do that.”

“[CCAMPIS] was a life-changing experience for that for that family.”

CCAMPIS Has Extremely Strong Results

NCMC’s CCAMPIS grant already is having strong results, with participants having significantly higher persistence, course completion, and GPA than the overall student body. 

CCAMPIS First-Year Results at NCMC:

• CCAMPIS participants achieved a 91.7% persistence rate, compared to 81.4% for the overall student body
• Participants had a 93.5% course completion rate, above the campus average of 92.9%, and
• Participants’ average GPA was 3.18, compared to 2.95 for all students.
• Student parents withdrew from courses at a lower rate (6.5% vs. 7.0%). 

CCAMPIS Works with Other Early Childhood Programs, Does Not Duplicate Them

Some in the administration and Congress have threatened to eliminate funding for CCAMPIS, claiming the program is “duplicative” of other federal early childhood programs.

Although other early childhood programs exist, they are not enough to support all low-income parents to work and improve their lives. Further, there are not enough child care and early learning programs to support parenting college students. 

In Michigan, only 10 percent of eligible children are served by the federal Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) subsidy (known in Michigan as the Child Development and Care, or CDC Scholarship).

In Michigan, only 30 percent of eligible children can be served by federal Head Start, which has significantly lower income eligibility limits. There are few Head Start programs in rural areas.

Even if student parents are able to qualify, there are many child care deserts without spots available. For example, looking at the five counties surrounding rural NCMC, only two centers have slots that will accept CCDBG, serving a total of 13 kids (there are fewer than13 open slots). There are zero Head Start programs with spots available in a 60 mile radius.

Further, CCDBG funding is a federal-state partnership program, so eligibility rules and funding levels change significantly with each state budget and state administration.

Federal Early Childhood Programs in Michigan 

CCAMPIS is a highly targeted program providing consistency for parenting college students. NCMC’s CCAMPIS-funded advising for parenting students helps them sign up for CDC scholarship, state-funded preschool, and other earned benefits they may be entitled to receive. Depending on a student’s income, family size, hours working, and hours enrolled in college, CCDBG may be able to pay for part of the child care needs, while CCAMPIS pays the rest.

Instead of using its CCAMPIS grant only for direct child care costs, Professor Wixson explains that “CCAMPIS helps us restructure our institutional approach to helping this demographic. Lo and behold we found out there are so many more [student parents] out there, and so many more come because they feel a greater connection. They feel like they belong here, they're no longer feeling embarrassed to walk into a class that's full of dual enrolled [high school] students.” 

NCMC braids CCAMPIS funds with other state and federal early learning programs to help more students complete college.

Michigan’s state preschool program pays for some four-year-olds in preschool centers, so NCMC’s child care center on campus mostly serves ages zero to three. These youngest learners are the most costly to serve, because of smaller staffing ratios and stronger safety requirements. CCAMPIS helps the center work financially.

At the on-campus child care center, “We do accept CDC scholarships; we accept Tri-Share, which is a Michigan innovation for partnering—employer, government, and private funding, to support, child care for families whose income exceeds the CDC Scholarship level, and then we have families who self pay.”

Jonathan Elkin is an independent consultant with experience in the U.S. House and Senate, state and local government, and bipartisan federal advocacy from early childhood to K-12 and higher education. Get in touch on LinkedIn or at Uniting for Student Success, LLC.

Photocredit: North Michigan Community College – Early Learning Center – See video