Illinois Great START pays early childhood practitioners a wage supplement by check every six months.
You qualify by staying with the same employer, working at least 15 hours a week, earning no more than $24.00 an hour and $49,920 a year, holding college coursework and keeping Gateways Registry membership.
It is money to you, separate from the Smart Start Workforce Grants that pay Illinois centers.
What the Illinois Great START program is
Great START is Illinois' wage supplement for the early childhood workforce, tied to college coursework.
Its terms are published on the Gateways site (ilgateways.com) — the same organization that keeps the Registry membership the program requires — and it pays the practitioner directly: a check every six months, for as long as you stay with the same employer.
Illinois funds a second, employer-side stream alongside it: the Smart Start Workforce Grants.
The grants go to centers, not to staff.
A center must have at least 15% of licensed capacity enrolled in CCAP (or a DCFS or military subsidy) to qualify, and the grant program moved to the new Illinois Department of Early Childhood on July 1, 2026.
The grant application itself is the center's to make.
What a worker gets out of the grant is a floor: classrooms the grant funds must pay lead and assistant teachers at least the county-group rates set for the program year.
This page stays on the worker side — what the two programs mean for the person on the payroll.
Who qualifies for Great START
Great START's terms, as the program states them, are:
- Hours. At least 15 hours a week.
- Pay. No more than $24.00 an hour and $49,920 a year. The caps are ceilings — earn above either and you no longer meet the terms.
- Continuity. The supplement goes to practitioners who stay with the same employer.
- Education. College coursework is required. How the payment amount is set is covered in the next section — including the figure this page cannot verify.
- Registry. Gateways Registry membership is required.
One caution on who counts: the program describes applicants as practitioners.
The pages our research read do not break eligibility down by role or setting, so if you are an assistant, a floater, a director or work in a home-based program, ask Gateways whether your role qualifies rather than assuming either way.
Qualifying for a supplement is also not the same as qualifying for the job.
What a center teacher must hold to work in a classroom is a licensing question — staff requirements in this state and the state pages under it cover that track.
Terms are set per program year
How much the Great START supplement pays
The supplement is paid on the six-month cycle, and the amount is the one number this page cannot give you: our research could not verify the dollar amounts (the program publishes the scale as an image), so no per-level figure appears here.
The verified dollar figures in Illinois' system sit on the other side of the fence.
The Smart Start Workforce Grant sets wage floors that grant-funded center classrooms must pay — for FY27 Round 1 (July–September 2026), per the program's wage-floor schedule:
| Role | Group 1A counties | Group 1B counties | Group 2 counties |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lead teacher | $19.25 an hour | $18.50 an hour | $18.25 an hour |
| Assistant teacher | $18.00 an hour | $17.25 an hour | $17.00 an hour |
Group 1A includes Cook, DuPage and Lake counties.
These floors are what the center must pay in a classroom the grant funds — payroll money with conditions attached, not a supplement added to your check.
When you compare offers, whether a classroom is grant-funded is a fair question to ask as you look through childcare teacher jobs.
The per-level amounts are this page's gap
How to apply for or renew Great START
Great START runs on Gateways' own process rather than a shared portal, and the sequence below follows from the program's stated terms.
Join the Gateways Registry first
Membership is a requirement of the supplement. The Gateways to Opportunity Registry covers what joining involves.Check your hours and pay against the caps
You need at least 15 hours a week and earnings of no more than $24.00 an hour and $49,920 a year at the same employer. Check the pay your program actually reports for you, not the rate you were offered.Document your coursework
College coursework is required to qualify. If you are unsure whether your coursework counts, that is a Gateways question to ask before you apply.Apply through Gateways
Great START lives under the financial opportunities section at ilgateways.com. Our research recorded no application deadlines or windows for the current cycle, so confirm the timing with Gateways directly.Stay put and watch the six-month cycle
Payments arrive by check every six months while you remain with the same employer. The pages we read do not spell out renewal paperwork, so ask Gateways whether you reapply each cycle or payments continue while you remain eligible.
Great START taxes and timing
The timing is the program's most predictable feature: a check every six months, tied to staying with the same employer.
What the pages we read do not pin down is the calendar around that cycle — application windows, cutoff dates for a given payment period, or what happens to a partly completed period if you change jobs.
Those are Gateways questions to ask before you plan around a date.
Tax treatment is the other open question.
The Great START pages we read do not state how the six-month checks are reported, and our research recorded nothing on it for this program.
Ask Gateways how a payment will be reported, keep any letters or forms the program sends you, and put your own situation to a tax professional before you file.
No tax guidance here
Similar wage supplement programs in other states
Illinois is not the only state putting supplement money behind early childhood education levels.
The Programs by State page from the national T.E.A.C.H. center lists which states run T.E.A.C.H. and WAGE$-model programs.
Three shapes worth knowing:
- North Carolina — Child Care WAGE$. Education-based salary supplements from Early Years, Inc. for teachers, directors and family child care providers working with children birth to 5 in participating counties, paid after each completed six-month commitment period at the same program. Early Years reports a program-wide average six-month supplement of $1,285.
- Maine — Early Childhood Educator Workforce Salary Supplement. Monthly stipends paid through licensed programs by MRTQ Registry level: $240 a month at Levels 1–4, $360 at Levels 5–6 and $540 at Levels 7–8. Family child care providers, owners and directors are included.
- Minnesota — Great Start Compensation Support Payments. The near-namesake: it shares the Great Start name but flows to programs, not workers, based on full-time-equivalent caregiving staff. Licensed Minnesota centers must spend the payments on increased compensation, benefits, premium pay or related payroll taxes for staff who regularly care for children — different money, different application.
The full directory — every state supplement and bonus program our research covers, with amounts, eligibility and the programs that have ended — is on our page of state wage supplements and bonuses.
This page is career information, not licensing, legal or tax advice. Program rules and amounts change each program year; confirm current Great START details with Gateways and, for the grants, the Illinois Department of Early Childhood.