Graduate parents staying for the summer can breathe easy -- grants that help students afford child care will come through.

The University Park Allocation Committee (UPAC) has allocated the entire $12,000 requested to the Student Parent Child Care Subsidy, Program Director Stephanie Zezzo said.

The program services about 300 families throughout the university system, providing partial support for parents seeking a licensed and accredited childcare facility. Funded primarily by the student activity fee and a grant from the Department of Education, the program also requested $81,000 in fee funds from the Funding Allocation Board (FAB) for 2007-08.

However, FAB was not empowered to supply funds for this summer, prompting the subsidy's successful plea to UPAC, which Zezzo made via teleconference on April 10.

"I was told the meeting went well and the conversation was productive," she said.

UPAC Chairman Greg Heleniak concurred, saying Zezzo did a "great job" of presenting the subsidy's merits.

"I think the committee recognized the service the program provides for University Park," Heleniak said.

Exactly how many students the program supports in University Park cannot be determined, as applications are processed centrally without bias to campus location.

About 65 percent of all applicants university-wide are undergraduates, a figure that has been growing.

Despite funding, Zezzo said the subsidy program can't come close to helping all the qualified candidates who apply.

"We have had a waiting list for 10 years, [and that list] has continually grown," she said. "Based on past trends. Penn State's low-income student population continues to grow, so our need for funding will grow as well."

Zezzo said that many students choose to attend Penn State because of the subsidy program and added she hopes that individual colleges and departments will also help to contribute internal funding.

Zezzo added that she has been in contact with the Graduate Student Association (GSA) President-elect Joseph Gyekis, who has "pledged his support" for the subsidy.

"He hasn't pledged any money, but that is something we'll definitely look into -- maybe they'll want to sponsor one student for a semester," she said. "They receive money from the student activity fee, so I don't know if they'll want to turn around and give money to another [fee-funded] organization."

Gyekis said that his organization would consider how it could lend financial support to the subsidy after it finalizes its budget and also thanked UPAC for funding the program during the summer semester.

"The graduate student lifestyle really emphasizes getting our life started, and a lot of graduate students are married and starting a family," he said. "Having the subsidized family care for many students is the difference between continuing graduate studies ... and dropping out of grad school."