With state funding secured, combined with the billions that the federal government pumped into childcare at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Lujan Grisham’s administration raised the maximum eligible income to 400 percent of the federal poverty line, or $111,000 a year for a family of four, and eliminated copays.

Then, last September, Lujan Grisham announced that the state would implement universal childcare starting November 1, opening the program up to a projected 25,000 additional children. It was a short timeline, and her announcement came as a surprise to the Legislature, which wasn’t yet in session. But by February it had passed a bill that codified universal childcare and allocated $700 million to pay for it through 2031. The rollout is “going incredibly well,” Lujan Grisham said. She typically gets thousands of complaints in a matter of days when instituting a new policy, she said, but “that is not happening” here.

Interestingly, 54 percent of the newly enrolled families were already eligible under the previous childcare-assistance program. Making it universal “changes how people think about it and makes it more like a real education program instead of like a welfare program,” Henderson said.

This aspect of the program continues to be debated. State Representative Pamelya Herndon, who represents a district in Albuquerque, voted for the universal-childcare legislation but supports limiting or eliminating it for the highest earners. “If there are people who can afford it, then we should allow that to happen,” she said. The legislation includes triggers that could lead to copays for those making 600 percent or more of the federal poverty level under certain adverse economic conditions.

Martínez initially agreed that families with higher incomes shouldn’t be eligible, but he has since changed his mind. “By making it universal, you’re making it more like Medicare or Social Security,” he said. “You create such a system that is very difficult to gut by other politicians who come after us.”

Lujan Grisham, for her part, is firm: “If you want all families to care about your policy, make it universal.”

When I met Maisie O’Neill in May, just a few days before her college graduation, she was still in the kelly-green scrubs she wears for her full-time job at a hospital in Albuquerque. Next fall, she will begin school to become a pediatric physical therapist; she wants to stay in New Mexico to practice. These plans, she told me, were made possible by universal childcare.

As we spoke, Sailor, her 7-month-old son, sat in her lap, his large, observant eyes taking everything in. Before Sailor was born, in October of 2025, she and her fiancé had planned to ask family members and friends to help with childcare. Any assistance they got would have been a patchwork: O’Neill’s mother still works full-time and her father only recently retired.

Then the universal-childcare program was announced. O’Neill signed up as soon as it started accepting applications on November 1, worried there would be such demand that she would get crowded out. Sailor was able to start, for free, at a Montessori school in late January.

Without universal childcare to cover the nearly $2,000-per-month cost, “we wouldn’t have been able to even consider that program,” O’Neill said. That’s more than they pay in rent—and they would have had to look for cheaper housing rather than stay where they are, close to their jobs and other young families and just three minutes from her parents. Saving up for physical-therapy school would have been much harder, too, requiring them to “downsize our whole life,” O’Neill said. Instead, they’ve been able to put money into savings for school, for their wedding in September, and even for trips they can take with Sailor, “opportunities or adventures,” she said.

At home and at school, Sailor is thriving; he’s learned to crawl and has started babbling. He now has a solid nap schedule, and the school has helped introduce solid foods into his diet. “He’s really happy,” she said. “It’s changing my life, and it’s also changing his life.”

O’Neill fears that her family, which has a combined income of $93,000, will no longer qualify if the Legislature institutes an income cap. As Sailor got fussy, pumping his legs on her lap and begging to be allowed to crawl, she directed her words to lawmakers: “I just really hope that they don’t go back to the cap, because that defeats the whole purpose of universal childcare,” she said. “Families like mine wouldn’t be where we are right now without this program.”

More than 18,000 children were enrolled in New Mexico’s universal-childcare program between November 1, 2025, and March 2026. “The parents are clamoring,” said Elizabeth Groginsky, the secretary of the state’s Early Childhood Education and Care Department. To apply, parents must provide their child’s birth certificate and documents proving that they’re state residents. (For children born outside of the United States, families must also offer proof of “qualified immigration status.”) Then they have three months to provide proof—such as tax returns or pay stubs—that all parents in the household are either working, in school, or job hunting. (Grandparents raising their grandchildren, as well as families dealing with homelessness or involved in the child-welfare system, are exempt from that requirement.)

Kat Labate Wright and her husband had tried to sign up for childcare assistance for their toddler daughter in Albuquerque before the program became universal, but their income was a few thousand dollars too high to qualify. They put her in childcare when she turned 1 but could only afford to have her there until the early afternoon. Wright, who has an autoimmune disease and runs her own design business, struggled to get work done, taking on fewer projects and completing them on weekends. “It felt like there was just not enough time to do everything,” she said.

So Wright applied for universal childcare. Now they send their daughter for the full day, which allows Wright to take on more work. That has helped her cover the cost of her doctor’s appointments and unexpected emergencies, such as when someone crashed into their parked car, totaling it, and the insurance didn’t cover the cost of a new one. “There are just so many moments in our lives where things happen, life happens, and we’re just like, ‘Wow, it’s so nice we don’t have to pay for childcare,’” she said.

It’s made a difference in other areas of their lives, too. Wright now has the time to exercise regularly. Her husband had the time to train for a marathon; he ran his first in the spring. “The financial stress, the time stress, all of that has just really eased,” she said.

When I met Vanessa Martinez and Michael McElyea, who live in Rio Rancho, the embroidered purple blouse that Vanessa wore was barely enough to cover her pregnant belly. The couple’s second baby was born in early August. Without universal childcare, it would cost $3,000 a month to get care for their two children. “I would have exited the workforce,” Martinez said. Instead, she’ll stay in her public-health job in the county government and “advance my career.”

The same was true for Alex Trujillo and her husband in Albuquerque. Childcare was already their third-largest monthly expense—behind housing and their car payment—and that was only for a few days a week for their son Teddy. Now they have another child, Ozias, who was 9 weeks old when we met in May and who alternated between nursing and resting fitfully in a carrier on Trujillo’s chest. “I don’t think we could have afforded two children in childcare,” she said. She and her husband would have tried to alternate their work schedules so one of them could care for their children—Trujillo, a social worker, could have taken a job in an emergency room and worked nights, for example—leaving them with “a lot less time as a family unit.”

Instead, universal childcare gave them “a little bit more breathing room,” she continued. They enrolled Teddy in extracurricular activities. Her husband could afford to finish his bachelor’s degree; he had just been accepted to a graduate program when we spoke.

A number of parents I talked with had nearly quit their jobs or considered turning down promotions before the rollout of universal childcare. Alejandra Grijalva-Becerra almost didn’t take her current job as deputy director of Partnership for Community Action, because the salary increase would have made her ineligible for childcare assistance. She would’ve had to spend more than $4,000 a month out of pocket on childcare for all three of her children. “Universal childcare was why I was able to take this job,” she said. Lindsey Lopez and her husband were paying for a nanny two days a week for their youngest child, but “it was just really becoming very overwhelming,” she said. “We had many conversations last summer about ‘maybe I just quit my job.’” Then the governor announced universal childcare, and Lopez signed her son up at a center she loves. “I feel like I can breathe, I feel like I can work, I feel like it helps my mental health. I can actually be a better parent overall,” she said.

Parents report that their children, too, are reaping the rewards of the program. Now that Trujillo’s son goes to preschool five days a week, “he’s doing really great,” she said; the consistency has “been better for him.” Wright also thinks her daughter is happier staying later at her preschool, where she’s able to play after she wakes up from her naps. “It’s been really good for her to get a little bit more free play with kids and the dirt,” she said.

At a time when the number of childcare centers has shrunk nationally, the supply is growing in New Mexico. The state gained 1,346 seats between December 2025 and April 2026, and it aims to add 55 new centers, 120 licensed home-based providers, and 1,000 registered home providers in the coming years, with the goal of adding capacity for 12,000 infants and toddlers. Yet that still may not be enough to meet the new level of demand. It may also not appear in the places that need it the most, nor serve children, such as those with disabilities, whose families want to enroll but can’t find providers who can accommodate them. Children in New Mexico who lack legal immigration status are also excluded from the program.

In May, the Santa Fe New Mexican found that the universal program was still 15,000 seats short of covering all eligible children under 6. Vanessa Martinez and Michael McElyea had to enroll their unborn baby in February to secure a spot that won’t be ready until weeks after Vanessa’s maternity leave ends. The state works one-on-one with families who can’t find a spot for their children. But, Groginsky acknowledged, “we do have families who have not been able to find a space for their child.”

Increasing the supply of spots to guarantee that all parents can find one they can use will require expanding existing programs and even creating new ones. The state isn’t doing that directly, but it has offered low-interest loans to providers to build more space—loans that can be completely forgiven for certain facilities in childcare deserts—with a $12.7 million fund that is expected to add enough capacity to serve 914 more children. Senate Bill 96 eliminated local zoning rules that barred providers from opening programs in their homes or building new sites.

Ninety percent of the state’s 1,499 childcare providers have opted in to universal childcare. Increasing the capacity at home-based programs in particular is easier and cheaper than building new stand-alone childcare centers.

Magnolia Chavez Barraza is one of the providers that the state would like to see participate in the universal program. But Barraza, who was impeccably put together when we met in a scrub shirt with Beauty and the Beast characters dancing across it, hasn’t signed up. In part, that’s because most of her families qualified for state childcare support before it went universal. But she also says she hasn’t gotten the guidance she needs to understand what joining the new program would entail and whether it would be to her advantage.

Maggi’s World, the service she runs out of her home in the South Valley of Albuquerque, offers 24-hour care every day except Sunday. Children arrive as early as 5 am. When I visited late one afternoon, I was immediately surrounded by the sounds of kids at play: About eight children, ranging from a baby to a 7-year-old, danced on a large, school-themed rug to music playing on the television. A bedroom toward the back of the space contained two beds, two cribs, and a bassinet. By 6 pm, three children were sleeping in the room; two brothers wouldn’t get picked up until 10:30. Barraza sleeps and rests in spurts throughout the day when she can find the time. “That’s the advantage of being in your own house,” she said in Spanish. But, she added, “there are times when I feel the late nights or early mornings weigh on me.”

Barraza’s services are in high demand. Despite increasing her license from four children to 12 this year, she had a waiting list of five families when we spoke in May. She gets calls at all hours from parents looking for spots, some seeking care that same day. Even so, the money she brings in barely covers her expenses. She’s hoping to increase her quality rating to get a higher reimbursement rate, which would net her even more if she were to opt in to the universal program.

Before she emigrated from Mexico, Barraza worked late nights as a lawyer, with no one to watch her young daughters. That’s what motivated her to offer round-the-clock care. Many of the families she serves work in eldercare, corrections, or nursing on evening or even overnight shifts. Despite her workload, not a hair on her head was out of place, nor did her makeup show the wear of hours of hard work.

The children’s meals are cooked and served in her own kitchen; the counter was littered with bottles, snacks, formula, and Clorox wipes. “We treat the kids like they’re at home,” she said. A separate area offered a play kitchen and an indoor slide alongside a changing table and cubbies stuffed with clothes and diapers. Two swing sets and a jumble of walkers and balance bikes took up the back patio.

In-home providers like Barraza “are caring for the kids; they’re caring for their home; and then, on top of that, they have to find time to understand the systems, the platforms, the processes” to join the universal program, said Grijalva-Becerra of Partnership for Community Action. She recently helped someone who wanted to become a home-based provider, and it took them about six months just to get registered; the licensing would take even longer. And it would be even more difficult for someone who speaks only Spanish. To opt in to universal childcare, the in-home provider must ensure that each family has a contract with the state; they also have to get visits from inspectors and enroll in a meal program—all steps to help the state ensure that children are getting quality care. Large childcare centers typically have the staff to handle the paperwork and logistics, while smaller in-home providers generally do not. “It seems as though all the policies and procedures are being set up for centers,” Grijalva-Becerra said.

Another key aspect of increasing supply is the pay. “Wages are going to have to rise in order for childcare employment to become sufficiently attractive that these classrooms are adequately staffed,” said Herbst, the childcare researcher.

Traditionally, states have relied on surveys of providers to find out what they currently charge parents and then set reimbursement rates at a share of that average. Recently, some states, including New Mexico, have begun to model how much it actually costs to provide care—from rent to wages to insurance to diapers—and set their reimbursement rates accordingly. When the state’s Early Childhood Education and Care Department was rolling out the universal system, it talked to providers to understand their costs, including what is required by the state’s star-based quality-rating and licensing systems. Then it developed a model that starts with a baseline wage for each employee—$18 an hour for five-star centers and $16 an hour for lower-rated ones—as well as $6,000 per staff member in benefits. Providers can qualify for a higher reimbursement rate if they commit to a higher minimum wage for entry-level staff and to being open 10 hours a day, Monday through Friday. Forty-eight percent of licensed providers have opted in to that enhanced rate so far.

Advocates argue that the base wage should be higher and that the process of setting reimbursement rates shuts the providers out. The cost model is “based on this really opaque formula” that the state has “been unwilling to share,” said Leila Salim, the communications manager at OLÉ. Meanwhile, many home-based providers report that it’s been impossible for them to get more than two stars given how much additional time they would have to put into the paperwork and observations and assessments by the state, plus the costs of hiring more staff and upgrading materials, all of which excludes them from the higher rates available for those with more stars. When universal childcare was launched in November, Grijalva-Becerra said, a lot of providers in the Partnership for Community Action network—many of them home-based—didn’t opt in, precisely because they wouldn’t get the higher reimbursement rates.

Advocates are pushing the state to create a pathway for providers to earn more as they invest more in their careers. OLÉ fought hard for a wage and career ladder to provide higher payments to providers who spend more time on the job, and the Legislature allocated $60 million to support such a structure. But Lujan Grisham nixed the measure in a line-item veto, deleting language that directed the money to “wage increases for” providers. She told me that her veto was based on her concern that wages would “start to outpace, potentially, access.” Meanwhile, the Early Childhood Education and Care Department is grappling with how providers move up the ladder; advocates want the state to consider skills learned on the job, not just the educational credentials they’ve been able to earn.

Provider pay is also a driver of quality. But determining what exactly counts as high quality—let alone mandating it—isn’t easy. “Access is not trivial, but it’s a relatively straightforward problem: It just requires money,” said Aaron Sojourner, a senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. “Quality assurance is a trickier problem.” Every program in New Mexico, whether it’s a small in-home provider or a giant center, is subject to the same rules for staff background checks, health and safety guidelines, professional development, and consistent monitoring. Every provider in the universal program is now also subject to a classroom-assessment scoring system. Nearly 70 percent of newly enrolled children are in four- or five-star programs.

Researchers say that two of the ingredients necessary for quality childcare are low student-to-teacher ratios and low staff turnover, which help create long-lasting relationships between teachers and the children they care for. Both require more investment, and the latter requires higher wages and benefits. Herbst and Sojourner applaud the state for reimbursing at higher rates when providers pay their staff better wages and meet higher quality standards. But Sojourner cautioned, “Can you maintain, at scale, high levels of quality? That remains to be seen.”

Several other states and localities are planning to make major investments in childcare affordability in the coming years. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani promised free universal childcare during his campaign and, with Governor Kathy Hochul, is pledging a full rollout within eight years; he has opened 2,000 seats so far for this fall. Vermont has made huge investments in its childcare system, and San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has made care free for low- and moderate-income families and wants San Francisco to become the first major city to ensure access for all.

New Mexico’s trust fund gives it an advantage. But the political will that advocates cultivated to gain access to that funding would be necessary anywhere, OLÉ’s Henderson stressed: “We had to fight for 10 years.” Advocates in the state attribute their success to a movement consisting of multiple organizations and led by the women of color who are disproportionately represented in the childcare workforce. “My message to other places is ‘Absolutely, it’s possible and it’s doable,’” Speaker Martínez said.

Studies of other publicly funded childcare programs show that the investments pay off over time. Quebec’s universal-childcare program more than paid for itself in economic benefits as more women entered the workforce, and the expansion of universal preschool in Washington, DC, has also significantly increased women’s participation in the labor force.

New Mexico is proud of its status as the front-runner. “I hope and I believe we’re going to be change agents for the country,” Lujan Grisham told me. The governor, who is term-limited, will leave office on January 1. Polls show Deb Haaland, the Democratic candidate for governor, ahead by several points; she has also declared herself in favor of the universal-childcare program. But even if she doesn’t win, the Legislature codified universal childcare this session with some Republican support, and the constitutional amendment enshrining a right to education for young children, passed by voters in 2022, still stands. “It’s going to be really hard to take it away,” said state Senator Heather Berghmans.

Then there are the parents who have fallen in love with the program. Berghmans said some of her friends who don’t follow politics closely are saving thousands of dollars and have thanked her for the free childcare they now receive. “Parents and families like this and want it,” Lujan Grisham said. “I’m feeling as bullish as you can.”