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The recent Cost, Quality, and Child Outcomes in Child Care Centers Study (Helburn, 1995) provided interesting results on the impact of center size on costs, revenue, profit, and quality. This paper reports on a more refined re-analysis of the impact of size on cost, quality, and profits per child. Briefly, defining a center enroll-ing less than 40 full time equivalent (FTE) children as small and a center enrolling more than 80 FTE children as large, we found that total cost and total revenue per child were similar for small, medium, and large centers. Profits per child were highest in large centers, and there was no relation between center quality and size.*

Cost, Quality, and Child Outcomes in Child Care Centers studied 401 centers in metropolitan areas in four states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, and North Carolina. The centers were open at least five days a week for at ...