WEST LAFAYETTE, IN — Purdue University is open to replacing Early Learning Indiana as the operator of one of its day care facilities near campus after the company announced earlier this month it would close the center, President Mung Chiang said Monday.
A new operator could theoretically keep open Purdue’s soon-to-close Early Care and Education Center, from which ELI has announced it will withdraw by April.
“There are indeed other operators,” Chiang told faculty at Monday’s university senate meeting. “ELI will remain an operator, but there are other operators in our state and we look forward to them coming in to have a conversation.”
Until April, the Indianapolis-based company, through a subsidiary, operated two of the three day care centers near Purdue’s campus, including Purdue ECEC and the Patty Jischke Early Care and Education Center, about a mile north of campus.
Purdue ECEC has a capacity of 120 children, with approximately 100 of these places filled. But in a Jan. 15 letter, ELI CEO Erin Kissling cited a “challenging funding environment” and difficulty filling the center’s seats as reasons for the closure.
The children, she told the parents, would be moved to ELI’s other center, about a mile north of campus.
“Early education providers in Indiana face a very challenging funding environment, and Early Learning Indiana, which operated Purdue ECEC, was not immune to these challenges,” Kissling said.
At Monday’s senate meeting, Chiang tried to assuage teachers’ concerns that the closing could seriously affect child care options in West Lafayette.
The university has no plans to “repurpose” the building or land currently operated by ELI, Chiang said, and administrators are open to finding ways to keep it open as a day care center without ELI’s involvement.
He did not elaborate on which companies, if any, might take over the center or how soon that might happen.
The planned closing comes amid a worsening child care shortage in West Lafayette that city officials have worked to address in recent years.
A 2024 study commissioned by the city found that the area around the campus has an “unmet need” for day care options and could face a shortage of 75 to 125 available spaces — a conservative estimate.
“There are clear gaps in meeting the need for childcare, and these challenges will only increase as the regional economy grows,” the report said.
The three facilities near Purdue can house a total of 378 children, according to a university report from the same year. Closing Purdue ECEC, however, could drop the number to 258 and nearly double West Lafayette’s deficit.
It is unclear how ECI plans to move all of the center’s children to the Jischke location, which has about 150 beds.
Purdue’s Ben and Maxine Miller Child Development Laboratory School is already at capacity with 100 children, said family sciences teacher Kimberly Updegraff. Her department runs the center, which she estimates has a waiting list of more than 60 families.
She said without more child care options available, she fears Purdue will struggle to hire faculty and staff with families.
“How can we make sure they can come to a place like Purdue and get high-quality care for their children?” she said. “How can Purdue be part of that solution rather than exacerbating the area’s incredible child care shortage?”
Jessica Robertson, Purdue’s vice president for auxiliary services, said the closing was out of the university’s hands, with declining enrollment the main motivation.
ECI has seen a 40 percent reduction in recent years of parents interested in enrolling their children at the center, she said.
A 2024 university initiative relieved ECI of $80,000 in its annual operating costs and helped the company hire new part-time employees, but Purdue’s efforts still weren’t enough to keep up with changing market dynamics.
“If those dynamics were to change and there was demand … that could be a different outcome,” she said. “Purdue will continue to look for the momentum shift.”
Kyle Haynes, a political science teacher who enrolls his children in Purdue ECEC, said he believes the center is understaffed to support any increase in enrollment and that staff turnover at the site has only exacerbated the problem.
“The demand is going elsewhere because Early Learning Indiana, frankly, has not done a good job,” he said.
But Robertson disagreed, arguing that parents on the center’s waiting list were turning down offers to enroll their children.
“It’s not necessarily that our rooms are understaffed or closed,” she said. “There just hasn’t been that demand or the right time for families to take up spaces at the center.”
This article originally appeared on the Lafayette Journal & Courier: Chiang: Purdue has opening for operator replacement at closed day care center