Nearly half of children whose parents want them to attend summer camp or other structured programs are unable to do so, mostly because of affordability, according to a report by the Afterschool Alliance.
“This equates to approximately 12.6 million children who are not in a structured summer experience but would be enrolled if one were available,” says the report, “The Summer Struggle for Everyday Families: Affording the Opportunities Parents Want for Youth.”
“Affordability is the most significant barrier preventing families from enrolling their child in a summer program, particularly for low- and middle-income families,” the report adds.
Jen Rinehart, the senior vice president for strategy and programs at the Afterschool Alliance and a co-author of the report, said in an interview that “high income families are three times more likely to be in a summer program.”
Low- and middle-income families were also more likely than high-income families to cite affordability as a barrier to summer enrollment.
“We have a situation where once the summer months arrive, there is a group of families who can afford these opportunities, and then other groups that are missing out,” Rinehart said.
Other barriers include transportation, a lack of local program availability, limited information, and a shortage of available spaces in desired programs, the study said.
The survey of more than 30,000 parents or guardians in the United States, conducted in early 2025, is part of the alliance’s “America After 3PM” series, funded by the Wallace Foundation.
(Editorial Projects in Education, the publisher of Education Week, receives sustaining support from the Wallace Foundation. The media organization retains sole editorial control over its articles.)
Besides traditional sleepaway or day camps, the summer experiences covered include summer school classes or credit recovery programs, summer jobs or internships, and college readiness programs.
The average weekly cost of specialty camps and programs in 2024 was $328, while voluntary learning and enrichment programs averaged $258 per week and optional summer school programs were $229 per week, the report says.
Just 13% of children from low-income families enrolled in summer camps, compared with 26% of children from middle-income families and 45% of those from high-income households, the report says.
More public and private support sought
Parents want safe summer programs that keep their children physically and intellectually active, engaged with other children, and off their electronic devices, the study says.
Rinehart said the survey did not ask about whether summer camps prohibited smartphones and other digital devices.
“We do know anecdotally that [there] are camps that will not allow kids to be on their phones during the day,” she said. “It’s just not easy to have your phone at camp, anyway.”
Parents who send their children to a summer program tend to rate the experiences highly, with 96% of such parents saying they were satisfied. But there was only a slight difference among parents who say they were confident in their children’s readiness for the next school years, which was 50% among those who had sent their children to a summer program compared with 43% of those who had not.
Nearly 9 in 10 parents (89%) were in favor of public funding for summer school opportunities so all children could participate. That figure has been trending upward since 2009, when it was 83%, the report said.
The report makes policy recommendations that include increased government and private funding of summer program opportunities. Some programs, such as one in the Tuscaloosa, Ala., city school district, have been able to leverage federal 21st Century Learning Centers grants with other funding to more than double the number of students enrolled in summer programs.
Meanwhile, the National Summer Learning Association, which supports and trains educators and others involved in summer programs, is backing the proposed Summer for All Act, sponsored by U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Andy Kim, D-N.J. The bill would authorize $4 billion in direct federal funding for children and families to access summer programs.
The Afterschool Alliance has not endorsed that bill because it doesn’t yet have bipartisan support, Rinehart said.
Instead, she said the alliance is awaiting regulations from the Department of the Treasury on rules for the federal tax credit for scholarships included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, with the possibility that the program could allow the scholarships to be used for afterschool and summer programs.
“We’re talking to Treasury regularly,” Rinehart said. “There is a tremendous demand for programs.”
