Dalia Gokirmak, 31, and her husband Oscar, 41, always wanted a big family. But when they found out they were having twins when she was pregnant for the second time, reality sunk in immediately. “I’ll be honest, I pulled out the calculator right away,” Oscar says.

Though they would’ve preferred to stay in Hoboken, N.J., the couple knew they would not be able to afford $1,600 a month per child, the going childcare rate in the area, plus the cost of moving to a bigger home. So they packed up and moved to the neighboring town of Union City where daycare rates are around $600-$700 a month.

“It’s the highest single household expense in most regions of the country,” says policy advisor Michelle McCready of Child Care Aware America, a childcare advocacy group. In a recent report, it found that childcare can cost as much as $14,508 a year for an infant, or $12,280 a year for a 4-year-old in a center. More disturbing: It found that in 31 states across the country, it costs more to send your infant to daycare than it does to send your child to a public university.

But unlike college, where you have years to save up, the sticker shock of daycare leaves families scrambling to make ends meet. “We’re seeing a huge shift of families postponing buying a house, having kids, and saving for retirement,” says McCready.

As more families rely on dual incomes to make ends meet, the increase of women in the workforce is driving the high demand of quality childcare. The Gokirmaks, whose children are now age 3 and 1, decided it makes the most sense for both of them to continue working – even if three-quarters of Dalia’s take-home pay, which amounts to 30% of their household income, goes straight to daycare.

While the benchmark for affordable care is 10% of a family’s income, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, there are only 12 states where this is true for married couples with children. And for single mothers, the financial burden of daycare averages 40% of state median incomes in all 50 states.

Help for low-income families

Only 1 in 6 low-income families that are eligible for government subsidies are taking advantage of the financial help available to them, according to Child Care Aware. That’s a result of low awareness of financial aid and long waitlists for daycare.

The good news is that in November, President Obama signed the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act into law. The $5.3 billion grant aims to raise industry health and safety standards as well as provide more funding to low-income households through state administered child care assistance programs.