The nation’s largest city is beginning to roll out universal child care, and the focus is on 2-year-olds.
Supporters of plan—including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani—are betting that the program will have cognitive and academic benefits for the young learners.
The new program, announced by Mamdani and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, includes about 2,000 seats in four communities this fall, and the goal is to make it available to all families across New York City in four years.
Across the nation, New Mexico is the only state to offer universal child care, a program which began last fall. Other states are focusing on expanding universal pre-k to include 4-year-olds, according to the Education Commission of the States.
“We see an economic imperative to universal child care, both on an individual [and] family level, to make sure that families can afford to stay in New York City and raise their families here,” Emmy Liss, head of the office of child care at the New York City Mayor’s Office, told Education Week.
“The goal is to strengthen current access and expand to provide free child care for all children under 5,” said Mamdani in a press conference last week.
Still, there are many questions about New York City’s efforts, particularly the program’s financial sustainability and plans to expand the program.
While the goal of providing universal child care has many advantages, the big question for any city or state promising it is funding, said Christopher P. Brown, the associate dean of the graduate school of education at the University of Buffalo.
“I want an initiative like this to work, but unfortunately, it does not take much for state and local governments to pull funding for [early childhood education] programs. Kids do not vote,” he said in an interview.
Child care as a tool to keep families in the city
The average cost of child care for infants and toddlers in family-based care was $18,200 in New York City in 2024, an increase of 79% since 2019, according to the Office of the NYC Comptroller. Those expenses are contributing to why families have left the city, said Liss.
“We think access to universal child care can help keep them here, which really is our goal, a more affordable New York for everyone,” said Liss.
Mamdani campaigned on launching this program. New York City had achieved universal child care for 3-year-olds and pre-school aged children.
There are additional benefits for children’s early exposure to learning, which has a “profound impact on their long-term social, emotional, and academic outcomes,” said Liss.
For example, one study of 255 ethnically diverse preschool students reflected that a child’s ability to practice self-control at the age of 4 was directly correlated to his or her math score in the first grade, according to research published in the International Journal of Behavioral Development.
Other benefits of preschool programs include improved attendance, being more likely to enroll in honors or AP classes in middle and high school, and being less likely to fail a course throughout their educational career, according to research.
The lack of staff is a barrier to preschool expansion
One of the concerns of this rollout is figuring out how to scale the universal child care program to meet the needs of all students.
Earlier this year, Hochul announced $1.2 billion in state funding was allocated to support early childhood care and education in New York City.
While securing funding is a step forward, maintaining that support could be a more complex challenge, said Brown. Because the program only exists in the city, generating sustained support and commitment from the state legislature for it could be difficult, he said.
Other challenges include creating conditions so that an early childhood education system is “truly becoming universal,” said Brown. For example, having a system that serves all children “no matter their developmental needs, establishing a consistent level of care and support across programs, and child care worker pay,” he said.
The availability of child care staff is a potential barrier to expanding the program. The median income of child care workers in New York City is around $25,000, according to data from 2023. That’s 45% less than the median income of all other New York City workers. Women (93%) and people of color (87%) disproportionately make up the workforce.
One way to mitigate the shortage in care is working with community organizations, like New Mexico planned to do when the state launched its universal child care program. Liss said New York City will leverage existing partnerships that the public school system has with child care providers, as well as enter into new partnerships to expand care.
The city’s goal, she said, is to “continue working to grow this program over the next couple of years so that by the end of the mayor’s first term, every 2-year-old in New York City has access to free, high-quality care.”
