Michigan鈥檚 initiative to offer free pre-kindergarten for all is paying off, state educators said Wednesday, as the Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement and Potential, also known as MiLEAP, touted nearly 53,000 applications on file since June.

Emily Laidlaw, MiLEAP鈥檚 deputy director, said during a virtual news conference that the figure had grown by 700 applications in one month and by 16% compared with the same time last year, when applications totaled more than 45,000 children.

鈥淥ur children鈥檚 futures are the most important thing we can invest in, and we鈥檙e proud of our statewide efforts to get more students enrolled in high-quality pre-K programs,鈥� Laidlaw told reporters Wednesday on a Zoom webinar to announce the Great Start Readiness program鈥檚 progress. 鈥淚n May, we saw over 55,000 children enrolled for the 2025-26 school year, which was an all-time high for pre-K for all. This initiative is being embraced by families across the state because it provides a high-quality early education opportunity at no cost.鈥�

Laidlaw added that with just one child enrolled in the program, families could save $14,000 a year on childcare costs. Those savings were crucial for families navigating high costs of living and a stagnating economy.

The is Michigan鈥檚 solution toward getting more kids in classrooms as early as possible, offering free pre-K programs for eligible four-year-olds across the state. It is ranked nationally as a premier pre-K program, offering math, reading and thinking skills training with a mix of play and hands-on activities.

Enrollment priority is given to families at or below 400% of the federal poverty limit, or approximately $128,000 for a family of four.

Laidlaw said that the program is open to all Michiganders, not just low- and middle-income families.

Synthia Britton, MiLEAP鈥檚 interim deputy director of early education, said that children who start ahead, stay ahead.

鈥淧re-K for All is improving hundreds of thousands of lives, which is why we must get the word out about these programs,鈥� Britton said. 鈥淎s we achieve record-breaking enrollment and applications, we know our efforts are paying off. There are more families across the state that can benefit from Pre-K for All who have not yet enrolled, so we must continue to spread the word about this amazing opportunity.鈥�

Families can learn more about the programs by visiting the state鈥檚 Pre-K For All website, or by checking with their local intermediate school districts for enrollment timelines and deadlines.

JoAnne Elkin, an early childhood and early literacy consultant with the Macomb Intermediate School District, said her ISD has more than 4,500 children already enrolled for the upcoming 2026-27 academic year.

鈥淲e know from research that when children have a strong start and access to high-quality early learning, they are positioned to reach their full potential throughout their entire educational journey,鈥� Elkin said. 鈥淗igh-quality pre-K promotes consistent attendance and positive school engagement, and it contributes to their success well beyond the early learning years.鈥�

Elkin said that emerging research shows that by age 5, a child鈥檚 brain has developed to nearly 90% of adult size, making those early years so important to develop literacy and other key skills.

鈥淗ighlighting access to high-quality pre-K is so very important,鈥� Elkin added. 鈥淚t means that families can go to work knowing their child is in a safe, nurturing environment with caring adults who support their growth and development.鈥�

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Could those two trends be related? New research and surveys indicate yes.

In , Boston University economics Ph.D. candidate Abigail Dow finds that when child care prices increase, some American families decide to put off having more children, and many don鈥檛 have more children at all. 

Dow looked at child care prices across the country in a compiled and published by the Women鈥檚 Bureau at the Department of Labor with data from 2010 to 2022. 

She then isolated a 鈥渟hock鈥� to child care prices 鈥� an event, unrelated to something like a recession or a spike in inflation, that made the cost of care go either up or down. The shock she identified was that when states mandate smaller group sizes and/or lower child to staff ratios, child care prices rise, so she studied what happened to fertility decisions when states passed such regulations.

鈥淢y key takeaway is that child care costs are high in the U.S., and I do find they鈥檙e a barrier to having children,鈥� Dow said. She found that a 10% increase in the price of child care for children from birth to 2 years old led to a 5.7% decrease in the birth rate among women aged 20 to 44. Her research also found that the price increase leads to women delaying when they have children: a 10% increase prompts women to push back their first birth by four months and to extend the time between a first and second child by half a month. Dow found that women鈥檚 decisions about whether to have second and third children were particularly hampered by high child care prices. 

The findings are strongest for women ages 30 or older. This is, Dow posits, because they have more to lose if they can鈥檛 get child care: they鈥檝e invested more time and resources into their careers and likely earn more, making the cost of having to give up on work to care for more children in the absence of affordable child care higher. Younger women have less to lose by having a child and dropping out of the work force if child care can鈥檛 be secured.

The research is novel: while there have been studies in European countries which suggest that women rethink having children when child care prices rise, Dow knew that those situations may not be applicable to the U.S., where the government spends much less on child care, it鈥檚 a primarily private system, and there is no guarantee of paid family leave. 鈥淭here wasn鈥檛 a robust empirical analysis of: How do child care prices affect fertility rates?鈥� Dow said. 

Dow noted that child care prices aren鈥檛 the only factor dampening the country鈥檚 fertility rate 鈥� other research has found that things like housing and health care prices also make an impact. But it鈥檚 clear that the cost of raising children is top of mind for American parents when they鈥檙e thinking about the sizes of their families. In of 3,000 nationally representative respondents by YouGov, the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University, and Deseret News released in November, a record share of participants 鈥� 71% 鈥� said that raising children is unaffordable, a 13 percentage point increase over 2024. That high cost of raising children was listed as the single most important reason survey respondents offered for why they鈥檝e limited the children they either had or planned to have. That response was twice as prevalent as the next two reasons they gave 鈥� a lack of personal desire and a lack of a supportive partner 鈥� and for the first time in the survey鈥檚 10-year history, it was the top reason respondents gave.

The survey also found that support for government resources aimed at parents through direct payments and better programs had increased since 2021, and opposition to such interventions was 10 percentage points lower. A majority favor universal day care, while just 18% oppose it. Survey respondents also supported increased tax credits for parents.

鈥淚f you think about, 鈥榃hat do I have to think about when I鈥檓 raising a family for those early years,鈥� child care is going to be front of mind,鈥� Dow said.

The situation is poised to get worse for Americans considering whether and when to have children. Dow鈥檚 data only goes through 2022. Since then, the billions of dollars in pandemic-era federal relief for the child care sector has disappeared. In its wake, states like Arkansas and Indiana have cut back on support for the sector. Indiana stopped enrolling new children in its child care subsidy program, and the state has reduced reimbursement rates for providers, leading more than 100 providers to shutter. Arkansas has also cut provider reimbursement rates, put new subsidy applicants on a waitlist, and instituted new copays for parents who receive vouchers. More of the cost burden will now fall on parents in states that pull back.

Dow cautioned that her research shouldn鈥檛 be interpreted as an argument for relaxing regulations in order to bring child care costs down and boost births. 鈥淭hese regulations are really important for child health and safety,鈥� she pointed out. 鈥淚鈥檓 absolutely not in the business of saying we should be making these regulations more lax purely to make child care more affordable for parents.鈥� But, she said, her research makes it clear that parents, and particularly mothers, make decisions about whether to have children and how many to have based at least in part on whether they can afford child care. 鈥淎nything we can do to make child care more affordable seems important from a policy perspective,鈥� she said.