Housing is not the main issue (grad students can afford that, after all), child care is. For several years an adult needs to be present 24/7 and if the adult i

Housing is not the main issue (grad students can afford that, after all), child care is. For several years an adult needs to be present 24/7 and if the adult is someone other than the parent that ain't cheap. If the adult is someone other than the parent and it's not business hours that really ain't cheap. What's a better use of the NSF's dollars? Funding night-nurses for grad students so professors can keep working them through the night? Or just funding day-care and regulating their hours? You definitely don't want to just give grad students assets that can be converted into liquidity after some fixed term, because then you're just exacerbating the "you get rich eventually, after you're too old for kids" issue. A better asset would be something like a seven-year voucher for day-care that is: 1. Granted after a two-year vesting period (so that people receiving this benefit get at least a Master's degree) 2. Non-transferrable (so students don't just sell it) 3. Not conditional on continued enrollment (so it doesn't tie you to an abusive professor / department) Again, I think this only really works with regulations on hours (possibly with a shift system of some kind), but once the federal government begins funding such a benefit there's no reason to restrict it to grad students (I'm sure military service-people could use such a benefit as well, and the more government professions receive it the more flexible the voucher is).