Affording childcare while working can be tough. Affording childcare while in college can be even tougher.

While she’s in class, Amanda Diener, senior in apparel merchandising, design and production, leaves her daughter at University Community Childcare.

In order to help pay for daycare, Denier uses a financial assistance program, Campus Childcare Access Means Parents in School, or CCAMPIS.

“Financial aid is extremely helpful,” Diener said. “I would not be able to afford daycare without CCAMPIS.”

Students using on-campus childcare are subsidized by the university and the Government of the Student Body, said Julia Hagen, program coordinator of Human Resource Services

“We help students by offering a sliding fee scale, which is a reduction in the actual cost of care,” she said. “The scale is arranged where lower income families are helped the most.”

Along with CCAMPIS, the Childcare Assistance Program and the Childcare Assistance Program for Undergraduates are also available to assist students with daycare fees.

U.S. Department of Education grants CCAMPIS $90,000 a year to help subsidize childcare for undergraduate students with the least amount of income, Hagen said.

To be eligible for CCAMPIS, students must use childcare services located at either Pammel Court, Veterinary Medicine Childcare Center or the Child Development Laboratory School, Hagen said.

The Childcare Assistance Program is another service offered to students and comes from student fees, Hagen said. With the Childcare Assistance Program, it doesn’t matter where students use childcare, she said.

Last year was the first time 32 cents of student fees from each student was allocated to childcare, Hagen said.

The program helps any student, regardless of their classification.

The final program, Childcare Assistance Program for Undergraduates, is available for undergraduate students only and is available through student financial aid, Hagen said.

Only nine percent of childcare programs in the nation are accredited by the National Academy of Childhood programs, and all three at Iowa State are, Hagan said.

There are currently 79 children at the Veterinary Medicine daycare and 81 children at Pammel Court, she said.

Kerry Dixon-Fox, project coordinator for Facilities Planning and Management, takes her son to University Community Childcare while she works.

“I am very impressed by how they run the program,” she said. “They do a wonderful job of rotating through different toys everyday.”