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ExpectMore.govExpectMore.gov home pageEXPECT FEDERAL PROGRAMS TO PERFORM WELL, AND BETTER EVERY YEAR.
Program Assessment

Program

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Child Care Access Means Parents in School

The purpose of this program is to increase the participation of low-income parents in postsecondary education. Low-income parents have lower college participation and completion rates than their wealthier peers. This program funds grants to institutions of higher education to provide childcare services for these students.

Rating

What This Rating Means

PERFORMING
Adequate

This rating describes a program that needs to set more ambitious goals, achieve better results, improve accountability or strengthen its management practices.
  • The program has made some progress in helping students with children stay in school or graduate. From 2002 to 2005, graduation rates for students in two-year institutions increased by two percentage points. Over the same period, results for persistence rates for students in two- and four-year institutions were uneven.
  • Legal barriers prevent the program from collecting performance information at logical intervals. Instead of collecting performance data annually, the law mandates 18 and 36-month collections. This limits data availability and complicates the presentation of performance information.
  • The program lacks an evaluation and targets for its efficiency measure. The efficiency measure tracks the federal cost of participants who persist in or graduates from an institution of higher education.

Improvement Plan

About Improvement Plans

We are taking the following actions to improve the performance of the program:

  • Ensuring the reliability of data and using it to improve program effectiveness.
  • Working with Congress to remove legal barriers to collecting data annually.
  • Using the findings of an upcoming study and efficiency measure data to target technical assistance.

Learn More

The content on ExpectMore.gov is developed by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and Federal agencies.