Preschool Tuition Assistance Program Sees Massive Demand From Island Families

When the Community Foundation For Nantucket launched a pilot program earlier this year to provide preschool tuition assistance to island families, it was expecting as many as 30 to 40 applicants. The foundation already knew the demand would be high given the small number of preschool providers, the high cost of those programs, and the need for most island families to have multiple incomes due to Nantucket's soaring housing costs.

But as it turns out, they had underestimated the need. When the pilot program opened in June, the Community Foundation received more than 110 applications for tuition assistance. 

“We knew the need was there, but the response showed us just how significant it really is,” said Sunny Daily, the Community Foundation's executive director. “More than 110 families raised their hands and said tuition assistance would make a difference for them."

This week the Community Foundation announced that those 110 island children would each receive $2,600 toward the cost of preschool through its pilot program. The $300,000 in funding that was distributed comes from the Community Foundation's Nantucket Fund, the Nantucket Golf Club Foundation, and an anonymous private donor. Each child's $2,600 in tuition assistance will be paid directly to the participating preschool providers.

“For a working family, $2,600 can provide meaningful breathing room in a household budget,” Daily said. “But the impact is bigger than the tuition credit. When parents can afford childcare, they are better able to work. Employers are better able to retain employees. Preschool providers have greater stability. And children have access to an important early educational experience."

The only eligibility criteria for the pilot program were that a child needed to be between 2.9 years old and 5 years old by August 31, 2026, and be enrolled in an eligible Nantucket preschool program. The town of Nantucket reviewed the applications and verified eligibility and enrollment. Every applicant who was deemed eligible received the same $2,600 tuition assistance award, as CFN and its partners opted not to award the grant money based on financial need.

"The preschool pilot program was intentionally designed to be broadly available rather than income-based," Daily told the Current. "Every eligible enrolled child received the same $2,600 tuition credit. We did discuss how best to distribute the available funding, including whether assistance should be based on financial need. For this first-year pilot, however, the goal was to make the program as broadly accessible as possible and to provide a meaningful benefit to every eligible family. Once we had the final number of eligible students, we divided the available tuition-assistance funding across those children equally."

Daily added that the huge response to the pilot program gave the Foundation important information regarding the scale of the need for preschool assistance on Nantucket, and that data will be used to help inform conversations about what comes next. It is not yet clear if the tuition assistance program will continue for a second year in 2027.

"As for year two, this was deliberately established as a one-year pilot, so there is not currently a commitment to either continue the program at the same funding level or provide the same per-child award next year," Daily said. "Part of the purpose of doing a pilot was to see what participation looked like, understand the impact on families, preschools and employers, and learn what would be required to make this kind of support sustainable. We now have real data to bring into those conversations with the town and our funding partners. We certainly hope this experience can help inform a longer-term approach to supporting early childhood education on Nantucket but I don't want to get ahead of those discussions or suggest that funding for a second year has already been determined."