In Ohio, the average family would need to earn about 1.3 times the state’s pre-K income eligibility levels to afford a typical early care and education program on their own, according to a new study from the national advocacy organization Pre-K Now, released in Ohio by Policy Matters Ohio. Even families earning as much as $58,000 in Ohio would struggle to pay for early education on their own, according to the Pre-K Now study.

The Pre-K Pinch: Early Education and the Middle Class outlines the difficulties facing families who earn too much to qualify for state pre-k programs but too little to pay for quality care on their own, and highlights the well-documented benefits – to these cash-strapped families, their children, and society as a whole – of providing high-quality, voluntary pre-k to all three- and four-year-olds.

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12/03/2008