When Jessica Langford’s Utah charter school for neurodiverse children scrapped its after-school program last October, her family felt the strain immediately. The school initially replaced the $200-a-month service with one costing $1,500, but when few families could afford it, the program closed entirely. Now Langford, a data-science engineer, juggles caring for her two children, aged seven and nine, with her full-time job. “The school system is not built with two working parents in mind,” she said. “Either the school schedule has to change or the work schedule does.”
Langford’s situation reflects a national crisis. Across the United States, after-school programs are closing or scaling back due to a combination of shrinking federal funding, labor shortages, and rising costs. Parents face long waiting lists, steep fees, or no available programs at all.
In Utah alone, the average waitlist runs to 80 children per program, according to Ben Trentelman, executive director of the Utah Afterschool Network. Before the pandemic, programs served around 32,000 students statewide. Last year, that number dropped to 17,000. Much of the funding squeeze stems from the broadening of state grants to cover multiple types of school programs, leaving after-school providers with a fraction of the support they once relied on.
The uncertainty has deepened under recent federal budget proposals. Earlier this year, President Trump temporarily froze grants from the 21st Century Community Learning Centers, the main federal after-school funding stream. While the money eventually flowed, the administration has proposed consolidating the program with others at a reduced funding level, while also seeking to dismantle the Department of Education, which oversees it.
The consequences are being felt nationwide. In Ohio, the Boys and Girls Club of Northeast Ohio closed 17 after-school sites when federal pandemic relief expired. Some have reopened, but demand now overwhelms providers like America Scores, which faces rising costs as schools begin charging for space once offered for free. “Parents are like, what are we supposed to do?” said Alison Black, the group’s Cleveland director.
The scope of the problem is vast. A 2020 report by the Afterschool Alliance found that while 7.8 million children were enrolled in after-care, another 25 million wanted but could not access programs. More than 850,000 elementary school children were left unsupervised each afternoon. New survey data from 2024 showed over half of providers had waitlists, with more than a quarter unable to return to pre-pandemic levels due to staffing shortages.
Funding has remained flat for a decade despite inflation, effectively cutting resources by an estimated $10 million since 2014. Rising labor costs further strain providers, as the sector struggles to recruit staff for low-wage, irregular-hour roles.
“The pandemic-era funding showed us there was a need,” said Susan Stanton of Illinois’ ACT Now Coalition. “But now there’s no alternate funding.”
For families like Langford’s, the crisis is personal. Without reliable after-school care, many parents are forced to make impossible choices between work and family responsibilities.
