Researcher says New Mexico’s Child Care Assistance program can weather federal funding cuts
By Taylor Velazquez
April 17, 2025 at 6:31 PM MDT
As the cost of childcare continues to rise nationwide, New Mexico has made major strides in expanding eligibility and stabilizing the struggling industry. And that bodes well for its future amidst federal funding rollbacks.
The University of New Mexico’s Cradle to Career Policy Institute found that policy changes made between 2019 and 2022 have expanded the number of children eligible for child care assistance by 70%.
Institute Deputy Director Hailey Heinz said these changes – like expanding child care subsidies up to 400% of the federal poverty level, waiving child care copays, and using a model that reimburses providers for the true cost of providing care – has resulted in 39% more children being served by the program.
“More families qualify, the benefit itself is more generous because child care is completely free if you qualify and then the providers on the back end have more resources per child to provide high quality care,” Heinz explained.
Meanwhile the Trump Administration has made several moves that impact education. Most recently a report obtained by the Washington Post, showed proposed funding cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services, taking about a third of the agency’s budget. This would eliminate the Head Start program, which has provided early childhood education and care for low-income families for 60 years.
According to a TIME article, if this budget proposal is approved by Congress, it would align with the Project 2025 policy blueprint and impact about 750,000 children nationwide.
Heinz said that while some funding is at-risk, because New Mexico has made a commitment to fund child care through state funding through the Land Grant Permanent Fund, the Early Childhood Trust Fund, and additional contributions from the general fund, the state is not as dependent on federal dollars to support its child care program as other states.
“This is not a system that exists at the whims of the federal administration,” Heinz said. “It is a system that New Mexico has built and funded and I think it has good bones to sort of weather this moment we’re in,”
This coverage is made possible by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and KUNM listeners.
The University of New Mexico’s Cradle to Career Policy Institute found that policy changes made between 2019 and 2022 have expanded the number of children eligible for child care assistance by 70%.
Institute Deputy Director Hailey Heinz said these changes – like expanding child care subsidies up to 400% of the federal poverty level, waiving child care copays, and using a model that reimburses providers for the true cost of providing care – has resulted in 39% more children being served by the program.
“More families qualify, the benefit itself is more generous because child care is completely free if you qualify and then the providers on the back end have more resources per child to provide high quality care,” Heinz explained.
Meanwhile the Trump Administration has made several moves that impact education. Most recently a report obtained by the Washington Post, showed proposed funding cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services, taking about a third of the agency’s budget. This would eliminate the Head Start program, which has provided early childhood education and care for low-income families for 60 years.
According to a TIME article, if this budget proposal is approved by Congress, it would align with the Project 2025 policy blueprint and impact about 750,000 children nationwide.
Heinz said that while some funding is at-risk, because New Mexico has made a commitment to fund child care through state funding through the Land Grant Permanent Fund, the Early Childhood Trust Fund, and additional contributions from the general fund, the state is not as dependent on federal dollars to support its child care program as other states.
“This is not a system that exists at the whims of the federal administration,” Heinz said. “It is a system that New Mexico has built and funded and I think it has good bones to sort of weather this moment we’re in,”
This coverage is made possible by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and KUNM listeners.