Chris Lisinski (senior reporter at CommonWealth Beacon): “After a years’ long process that involved a statewide vote to change its constitution, New Mexico now offers universal child care by tapping into something called the land grant permanent fund, which is essentially funded by the oil and gas industry in New Mexico.
“The state subsidizes costs for virtually all families regardless of how much they make. It’s had a massive impact, swelling enrollment by the thousands and saving the average New Mexican family some $12,000 per year, while also exposing ongoing challenges with hiring enough workers to ensure there’s a sufficient supply of child care slots.”
Jacob Vigil (Chief Legislative Officer of New Mexico Voices for Children): “Really the effort began probably around 2009 when advocates got together and really put their heads together to try to figure out what was the next thing, what was a thing that our state could do to improve child well-being and poverty. We had long been at the bottom of a lot of lists and national rankings.”
“So, it’s really a story of um long-term trust-based coalition work, broad coalition work that reached out beyond the traditional early childhood advocacy ecosystem—an effort around communications, narrative building, community organizing, and then data-driven advocacy, which is where my organization, my work have largely been focused.”
“And then when the governor announced universal childcare last year, it was really the culmination of a lot of that work to help the public and policymakers understand why this is an economic development story, why this is about child development and education, health outcomes, and why this is something that we can really do to address… the widespread and systemic poverty that a lot of our children have grown up in.”
— “What can Mass. learn from New Mexico’s universal child care experiment?” by CommonWealth Beacon staff, CommonWealth Beacon Codcast, July 6, 2026