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San Antonio has even fewer child care seats available than previously known.
A study commissioned by the City of San Antonio has found that child care providers are operating at about 70% of the capacity they’re licensed to provide.
Texas A&M University-San Antonio researchers found that, on paper, San Antonio child care providers have the capacity to enroll about two out of three children under the age of five in Bexar County. But, in reality, they only have enough seats to enroll about half.
“That likely means that there are about 71,000 families in Bexar County who don't have the option of putting their child in child care simply because there aren't enough seats available for them,” said A&M-San Antonio early childhood professor Melissa Jozwiak, who led the study.
The advocacy group Children at Risk publishes a map of Texas child care deserts every year. It shows that South Bexar County especially needs more seats, and that access to high quality, affordable child care is a challenge across the region.
But those maps are based on the maximum number of children providers are licensed to care for, not the number of seats providers open for enrollment.
“We knew those maps were concerning, but they were based on a number that we knew was inflated, not because of the way Children at Risk was doing their data. They were using state reported data, but that was the only data that was available,” said Jozwiak. “Now we have additional data that helps us understand that centers are not operating at license capacity, and that the percentage below capacity that they're operating at is about 70%.”
Jozwiak said most child care centers enroll fewer students in order to maintain a good ratio of staff per child.
“When we asked centers why they couldn't improve their quality, or why they couldn't expand their capacity, staffing issues were the number one reason that they cited,” she said.
For example, Jozwiak said the child care center on the A&M-San Antonio campus is licensed to serve over 60 children, but that would require them to have 30 children per classroom.
“To put 30 school-aged children in one classroom, that doesn't represent quality to us, so we have always made the choice to enroll at a much lower number,” Jozwiak said. “And that's really the dynamic that's been playing out throughout the community for a variety of reasons.”
The A&M-San Antonio study also found that it's especially difficult for families to find child care for infants and for nontraditional hours, and that affordability is a big challenge. Only 17% of child care openings are for infants, and 93% of child care providers close before 7 p.m.
“When you look at the average wages that we were able to find, preschool staff get paid more than toddler staff, [and toddler staff] get paid more than infant staff. So again, all of this makes sense, why our fewest openings are infant toddler openings? Because infant toddler teachers have the lowest wage,” Jozwiak said.
Infant care is also the most expensive, with an average tuition in San Antonio of $861 a month.
“Centers reported charging as much as $2,200 per month for infant care,” Jozwiak said, “All the studies that show childcare is costing more than university tuitions, you really sort of see it play out.”
Although the study primarily surveyed child care providers, it also held focus groups with families. Based on that feedback, Jozwiak said families want infant care, but they often can’t afford it.
“We had some families reporting they had to change careers and change jobs simply because one job came with childcare benefits and their prior position did not,” Jozwiak said. “A lot more families are being forced because of the cost, high cost of infant care. They may not really have a choice in that. It may just economically be that they have to leave the workforce.”
Jozwiak and her co-researcher, Hatice Inan, presented their findings to the Economic and Workforce Development Committee of the San Antonio City Council on Friday.
Sarah Baray with Pre-K 4 SA told the committee the study was an important tool for economic development because child care is key both for the current workforce and for the future workforce.
“This is where our youngest children get their start,” Baray said.
Based on their study findings, Jozwiak and Inan recommended expanding access to infant care, improving educator compensation, and advocating for more state and federal funding to subsidize the cost of care for families.
They also recommended advocating for the state to ask providers about their enrollment annually as part of the licensing process in order to obtain better data going forward.
Despite the needs exposed by their research, Jozwiak said a lot of efforts are underway to improve the situation.
“My most important takeaway is don't try to create something new. I think we just strengthen what we already have before,” she said. “Sometimes the knee-jerk reaction is well, we need a new program...we've actually got some great pieces in San Antonio, some committed players."
During the committee meeting, District 3 Council member Phyllis Viagran asked how much of a role city government can be expected to take on to tackle childcare.
Baray told her the recommendations are for everyone in the community, not just city officials.
“There aren’t really any surprises in this study,” Baray said. “One of the reasons we asked for the study was we had a sense from working out in the community that this was the situation. But we wanted to know the extent of it, the depth, where it is, so that we can begin to focus resources.”
Jozwiak said there are a lot of efforts underway that are already beginning to make a difference, and a lot of nonprofits and business partners involved too.
Universities like Texas A&M-San Antonio, for example, are working to make child care credentials and two-year degrees count toward bachelor’s degrees to make it easier for early childhood educators to obtain the education they need to earn higher wages, and in turn, for the quality of child care to improve.
A&M-San Antonio is also breaking ground later this month on a larger child care facility called Educare San Antonio that will be open to the public.
“Our focus is on infants and toddlers, because we know that's where the greatest need is. High quality, because we have a lot of childcare deserts on the South Side,” Jozwiak said.
Educare San Antonio is slated to open in the summer of 2026, with the capacity for 200 children at any given time, and long hours to accommodate different work and class schedules.
“We will be open from 6 a.m. until almost 9 or 10 p.m. at night. So, in theory, we could serve 400 children in a given day,” Jozwiak said.
She said Educare’s funding model also is a good example of how communities can make child care more affordable.
“It's a blended and braided funding model,” Jozwiak said. “It includes both Head Start and Early Head Start [federal] dollars. It does include funds from the university through in-kind services for things like security, electricity, all of those components. It does have a sliding scale available for family tuition, which accounts for a portion of it. And then there is the opportunity for a philanthropic component.”
She said Michigan is a good example to follow, with programs that are funded through a combination of public dollars, business support, and family contributions.
“There's a lot of industry going in on the South Side, and if one of the major industries said, ‘We have second shift workers and we need child care for them,’ that's the sort of innovative design where you could say, ‘Okay, well, here's what we would need to be able to secure seats for your employees,’ and then create a financial model where they're contributing directly to it,” Jozwiak said.
She pointed to the work of an advocacy group called Early Matters as a sign that San Antonio’s business community understands the importance quality child care. Early Matters has a lot of heavy hitters on its advisory board, including Peter Holt of HOLT CAT, Former Speaker of the Texas House Joe Strauss, and Shari Albright with the Charles Butt Foundation.
“No city can afford to solve the problem. I'm not even sure any state could afford to solve the problem,” Jozwiak said. “It really has to be a collaborative effort: public, private entities coming together.”
