The region’s Great Start Readiness Programs (GSRP), which offer free pre-kindergarten, will no longer have an income limit.
Before, parents could only sign up for GSRP pre-K if they made less than the program’s income cap, which was set at four times the federal poverty limit — or around $128,000 per year for a family of four for the 2024-2025 school year.
But now, all families with four-year-olds can apply, since Michigan state guidelines have changed to lift the former income cap.
Tracy Spincich, who coordinates early childhood programs for Northwest Education Services, says the cap had already been increasing.
But this year, “the change is really that that cap has gone away completely, as long as students are age eligible," she said.
Local programs must reserve at least 10% of their slots for families with the highest need.
According to state data, most Michigan four-year-olds already come from families who make below the previous income cap. But Spincich says even families who made above that relatively high income level can feel burdened by the high cost of private preschool.
With the new rules, lower-income families will get priority if there are more applications than seats. The change takes effect for the 2025-2026 school year.
Expanding towards universal pre-K
Governor Gretchen Whitmer has made universal pre-K a priority and she’s doing it by expanding the GSRP educational pre-K model.
According to professor Jamie Wu of Michigan State University, “this [change] is in line with the Governor's intent on eventually turning GSRP into universal pre-K.”
Her research center publishes reports on the effectiveness of GSRP programs as they’ve expanded each year. According to their data, the Traverse City region is meeting its demand for GSRP programs just as well as the rest of the state.
The Upper Peninsula, on the other hand, is not meeting the demand for GSRP seats. They identified the western U.P. as the area that needed new programs most in Michigan.
Some Michigan officials critical of the program say the expansion of universal pre-K will box out private childcare providers. They argue the state should not pay for families that can afford private programs and should instead save seats for families who need them.
Spincich, of Northwest Ed, said she has heard some concerns from the program's administrators that the removal of the income cap could take seats away from lower-income families.
“I think it's a legitimate concern, and I think it's up to us as a region and as a state to communicate with families early,” she said, now that registration is open.
But she says Northwest Ed's records suggest there are enough spots to go around, and that program partners can choose to save more than the minimum 10% of seats for families with the highest need.
