Doctor with two kids voices her concerns about how daycare rates have skyrocketed in recent times

The cost of living continues to increase at alarming rates. This has severely affected parents looking to give their kids a decent education. One would think that absurd rates would only be there for colleges or schools, but it seems the problem is prevalent in daycares, too. Dr. Valencia Garcia recently shared a video on TikTok, where she analyzed just how highly-priced daycares were becoming. The video has 15.8k likes and 2,470 comments on the social media site.

Dr. Garcia begins the video by saying, "These daycare prices are getting out of control." She shares how she had received the 2024 rates from the daycare that she sent her kids to. Dr. Garcia then begins reading out each of the rates from the chart. For a preschooler, it was an astounding $382 in a week. Whereas, in the case of an infant, it was drastically bumped up to $471 a week. The daycare also had rates for two days or three days.

After this, she pulls up the 2023 rates from the same school. She reads out, "Infant, $449 a week. Preschool, $364 a week." Viewers are then shown the rates for 2022. The daycare rates for infants were $413 a week and preschoolers were just $335 a week. Dr. Garcia also compares it to the rates from 2021, which were marginally lower. She stops here and compares the rates for infants in 2021 and 2024. The rate for infants to go to daycare was $382 in 2021, which saw a meteoric rise to $471 in 2024.

She comments on this, "That's almost a $100 increase from 2024 compared to 2021." Dr. Garcia shares how she is a mother to a preschooler and an infant. Thankfully her infant would not start going to the daycare till March of next year. But when both of them did go to daycare, she would end up paying exactly $814.80 a week for daycare. Dr. Garcia says, "How are people doing this?" She goes on about how she was a resident doctor and still felt that it was too much money for daycare.

Dr. Garcia expressed gratitude that she made a bit more within her profession but concluded by inquiring if all big cities had such high rates for daycare. It seemed that many other people also agreed with the doctor about the pricing and shared their insights in the comments section. @ladyafryqty pointed out, "What's crazy is it's gone up almost $200 a kid, but the workers still make the same amount. Go figure." @justbeingsharrica suggested, "At those rates, somebody in the friend group or family will have to decide to become the family daycare provider."

@roughdiamondgrl said, "Whew, I don't know how y'all do it. My son went to a neighbor's home daycare. He ate well and learned a little Spanish for $150 a week. He's 16 now." @callmereetarose commented, "Daycare is the main reason I've only had one kid. I want another so bad, but these prices are insane."