In 2020, New Mexico established the New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship. Following the enactment of the Opportunity Scholarship Act in 2022, New Mexico saw a 103.5% increase in public financial aid from fiscal years 2022 to 2023. More specifically, two-year public financial aid increased 63.8% and four-year public financial increased 109.2%.
The New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship differs from many other tuition-free college programs in multiple ways, most notably in that the New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship employs a first-dollar approach. This means the scholarship is applied before other types of non-state aid including federal Pell Grants. Additionally, the program is open to all students, who don’t already have a bachelor’s degree, attending any two-year or four-year public institution, whether they enroll full-time or part-time. While many other states with tuition-free college programs are limited to recent high school graduates, or designated as a program that reconnects adults who started, but did not complete a postsecondary program, the New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship is open to all New Mexico residents regardless of age. Though half of all states continued to see enrollment declines from 2022 to 2023, FTE enrollment in New Mexico increased by 4.2%. This deviation from national trends may be, at least in part, due to the state’s additional $146 million investment in the Opportunity Scholarship.