CCAMPIS FY2026: $73.5 Million for Campus Child Care, but Nearly Half as Many Awards

The U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services have opened a $73.5 million competition under the Child Care Access Means Parents in Schools program, with applications due May 29, 2026 — a critical funding window for community colleges and workforce development institutions serving student parents, as published in the Federal Register on April 24.

$73.5 Million for Campus-Based Child Care Under a New Federal Partnership

The FY2026 CCAMPIS competition (ALN 84.335A, Grants.gov Opportunity 361967) marks a structural departure from prior cycles. For the first time, the Department of Education and the Administration for Children and Families within HHS are running the program jointly under an Interagency Agreement. HHS will manage grant funds, issue awards through its GrantSolutions platform, and provide technical assistance — functions that ED handled exclusively in every previous competition.

The Federal Register notice (Document 2026-08100) establishes three absolute priorities for this cycle:

1. Leveraging Non-Federal Resources — applicants must demonstrate capacity to bring matching funds or in-kind support beyond the federal award
2. Making Child Care More Affordable By Utilizing a Sliding Fee Scale for Low-Income Parents — programs must implement income-based fee structures
3. Expanding Education Choice in Early Learning Settings — new this cycle, signaling interest in diverse provider models beyond traditional on-campus centers

These priorities are absolute, meaning every successful application must address all three. The addition of the education choice priority is new and reflects broader policy currents around provider diversity in early childhood programs.

What the Numbers Tell Community Colleges

The headline figure — $73.5 million across an estimated 148 awards — deserves context against recent funding history:

Two things jump out. First, total funding dropped roughly $10 million from the FY2023 level of $83.7 million. Second — and this is the more consequential signal — the number of expected awards was cut nearly in half, from 264 to 148. The award ceiling is now $500,000, and the implied average is close to that ceiling, suggesting ED and HHS are concentrating dollars into fewer, larger grants rather than distributing thinner funding across more institutions.

For community colleges, which historically have operated CCAMPIS programs on tighter budgets than four-year research universities, this is a double-edged shift. Larger awards mean more resources per grantee to build or sustain meaningful child care infrastructure. But the reduced number of awards means the competition will be significantly more selective. Institutions that received CCAMPIS funding in prior cycles are not guaranteed renewal, and new applicants face longer odds.

Why This Matters for Student Parents at Two-Year Institutions

Nearly one in five undergraduate students — more than three million nationally — are raising children while pursuing credentials. That number is disproportionately concentrated at community colleges, where nontraditional students juggling work, family, and coursework are the norm rather than the exception.

The research on what happens when campus child care is available is unambiguous. The Institute for Women's Policy Research has found that community college student parents with access to on-campus child care are nearly three times more likely to graduate or transfer to a four-year institution within three years compared to peers without that support. Child care is not a nice-to-have amenity — it is completion infrastructure.

CCAMPIS is the only federal program specifically designed to fund campus-based child care at institutions of higher education. Unlike broader child care subsidy programs like CCDF or Head Start, CCAMPIS ties eligibility directly to Federal Pell Grant receipt, ensuring funds flow to the lowest-income student parents. Applicant institutions must have received at least $350,000 in Pell Grant funds in the preceding fiscal year — a threshold that most community colleges with meaningful enrollment clear comfortably.

The program has operated under the Higher Education Act of 1965 since its creation, relying on ED's student aid infrastructure and FAFSA data for eligibility verification. The shift to joint ED-HHS administration raises practical questions about how smoothly that integration will work, particularly given widely reported staffing reductions at HHS through recent restructuring.

The ED-HHS Transfer: What Applicants Should Prepare For

The interagency partnership is the most significant operational change in CCAMPIS history. Dr. David Barker, Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education, framed it as leveraging HHS's "expertise in early childhood care and education." Alex J. Adams, Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, called the FY2026 competition a reflection of "continued commitment to supporting student-parents."

Practically, here is what changes for applicants:

• Awards will be issued through GrantSolutions, HHS's grants management platform, not ED's G5 system. If your grants office has only worked through ED systems, budget time for staff to familiarize themselves with GrantSolutions workflows.
• Technical assistance will come from HHS/ACF, which brings deep expertise in child care program administration but less institutional familiarity with higher education operations.
• ED staff have been detailed to HHS as part of the transition. The continuity of program officers who understand campus-based models may vary.

Some advocates have raised concerns. New America's education policy team has argued that characterizing CCAMPIS as duplicative of other child care programs "misrepresents the program's unique design," noting that CCAMPIS was specifically architected around postsecondary enrollment and Pell eligibility in ways that CCDF and Head Start are not. They also flagged that HHS has experienced significant staffing reductions, warning of potential "delayed competitions, unclear guidance, inconsistent oversight."

Those concerns are worth monitoring, but they should not deter eligible institutions from applying. The competition is open, the funding is real, and the deadline is fixed.

Key Dates, Eligibility, and Application Details

Deadline: Complete proposals must be submitted electronically through Grants.gov by 11:59:59 p.m. Eastern Time on May 29, 2026. That is 33 days from publication of this article.

Grants.gov Opportunity Number: 361967

ALN: 84.335A

Project Period: Four years

Award Ceiling: $500,000 per year

Eligibility: Institutions of higher education that received at least $350,000 in Federal Pell Grant funds in the preceding fiscal year. Participants served must be low-income parents eligible to receive a Federal Pell Grant.

Applicant Webinar: HHS/ACF is hosting a webinar on Tuesday, April 28, 2026 from 2:00–3:30 p.m. EST covering the absolute priorities, invitational priority, and selection criteria. If you are considering applying, this session is not optional — the new priority structure and the shift to HHS administration mean that assumptions carried over from prior CCAMPIS cycles may not hold.

Building a Competitive Application in a Tighter Field

Given that 148 awards will be made from a pool that historically attracted more than 250 applicants, differentiation matters more this cycle than in any prior CCAMPIS competition. A few considerations for community college grants teams:

Lead with your Pell population data. CCAMPIS exists to serve low-income student parents. Quantify your institution's student-parent population, Pell recipient numbers, and any existing survey data on child care as a barrier to enrollment or completion. If you have retention or completion data for students who received child care support through prior CCAMPIS awards or institutional programs, surface it prominently.

Address all three absolute priorities explicitly. The sliding fee scale and non-federal resource requirements demand concrete plans, not aspirational language. If your institution already partners with local child care providers, Head Start programs, or employer-sponsored care networks, document those partnerships and the resources they bring to the table.

Take the education choice priority seriously. This is new, and reviewers will be looking for evidence that applicants have thought beyond a single on-campus center model. Community colleges with satellite campuses, evening and weekend programs, or workforce partnerships with employer sites have a natural advantage in proposing diverse provider arrangements that serve student parents where they actually are.

Budget for the GrantSolutions transition. If your grants office needs training on HHS systems, account for that in your project plan and timeline. Small administrative stumbles during a platform transition can delay disbursements and reporting.

For institutions exploring federal funding for student support services more broadly, Granted maintains a searchable database of active opportunities. Search active child care and student parent grant opportunities on Granted to identify what else is available alongside CCAMPIS. Visit the Granted blog for ongoing coverage of federal funding developments affecting higher education and workforce programs.

Fewer Awards, Higher Stakes

The FY2026 CCAMPIS competition is smaller than its predecessors by award count but substantially larger per grant — a deliberate concentration of resources into fewer institutions. For community colleges that win, $500,000 annually over four years is transformative funding for campus child care programs that directly drive student retention and completion. For those that do not, the gap left by a 44 percent reduction in the number of awards will be felt directly by the student parents who depend on these services to stay enrolled.

The application window is narrow. Institutions that intend to compete should begin drafting immediately, attend the April 28 webinar, and ensure their grants teams are oriented to the new HHS submission infrastructure. The underlying need — millions of student parents who cannot finish credentials without affordable child care — is not diminishing. Neither is the evidence that meeting that need works.