The two most important decisions in a person's life can be "do I want kids," and "do I want to go to college?" But no one asks where to start that family or in what state to go to college, although that might be more important. NetCredit wanted to figure out which states had the biggest divide between college tuition and childcare costs, and then ranked states based on their differences between the two.

NetCredit researched the annual fees paid for both private and public schools — as well as the average cost of childcare in all 50 states — calculated the difference, and further compared local salaries to the affordability of in-state college tuition. Statistics.

Key Findings:

• If you want to have a baby but don't want to pay a lot, then consider moving to Utah, the most affordable place to raise your child. People in Utah spend the lowest share of one's annual earnings on childcare per year, at just under eight percent of their average yearly salary.

• Averaging all the states together, childcare in America costs $1,031 more than tuition at a public college.

• The biggest gap between childcare costs and public college tuition is in Hawaii, where the difference is $15,995 annually. New York came a close second with $15,951.

• Of the 50 states, 28 have more expensive childcare than in-state college tuition.

• Vermont's average salary is around $55,450, and Vermonters spend 24 percent of their annual wage paying for in-state college tuition — the most of any state. California is the opposite, where that percentage is only four percent.

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Note: Private college tuition fee figures for Wyoming were unavailable for comparison. The data was collected in June 2023.

Via NetCredit.