February 3, 2026
The 2025 Nebraska Child Care Market Rate Survey was developed and administered by the Buffett Early Childhood Institute on behalf of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to investigate the prices or rates licensed providers charge for child care in Nebraska. The rates collected in this survey will be used to inform the child care subsidy reimbursement rate set for 2025–2027.
The 2025 MRS included items gathering both quantitative and qualitative data. Survey items gathered information on the following topics: enrollment and attendance, full- and part-time rates for traditional care, full-time rates for nontraditional care, diversity of children, child care subsidy, staff training, program information, narrow cost analysis items, and children with behavioral and medical special needs. DHHS provided the Institute team with an electronic version of the most current child care licensing roster, allowing the team to pull in administrative data for analysis (i.e., county and licensed capacity, among others).