Housing costs are high enough in the Bay Area. Ugly Reality No. 2 for young families is the dearth of affordable child care.
Two years ago, 350 children were on the waiting list for Stanford's two campus centers. Today that number is 500 and climbing. And those who get in have to pay the going local rate -- $1,200 per month for infant care and $800 for preschoolers.
A recent study in Santa Clara County concluded that there already is a need for 11,000 spaces. Kathleen Sullivan, who retired in December as director of Stanford's WorkLife Office, says her group "hears from families all the time who say they are choosing not to have another child" because of the expense of child care.
Sullivan and her staff completed an assessment of campus child-care needs in June, and President John Hennessy studied it over the summer. In November he announced several initiatives. The University will pay for improvements to two child-care centers on campus -- the Children's Center of the Stanford Community and the Stanford Arboretum Children's Center -- and may build an additional center, he said. Yet another child-care center, this one run by a for-profit group, will open at the Stanford West apartments next fall. And the University is considering a salary supplement for faculty and staff beginning next September or January.
That should come as encouraging news to junior faculty at the University and postdoctoral researchers and staff physicians at the Medical Center, who seem to make up the majority of parents -- on the waiting list and enrolled -- at the campus day-care centers.
