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The New Mexico governor’s office made sure to alert the New York Times ahead of last year’s big announcement that public university education would soon be free for all residents.
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said that New Mexico, notoriously poor and near bottom in the public education rankings, would be the first state to take the plunge, thanks to a blue wave that swept through the state in 2018, when Democrats elected Lujan Grisham after eight years as a Republican governor, shifted the state’s sole Republican seat in Congress from red to blue and bolstered majorities in the state legislature.
“This program is a complete game-changer for New Mexico,” said Lujan Grisham at the time. “In the long term, we will see improved economic growth, better outcomes for New Mexican workers, families and parents.
In New Mexico, the median household income is about $ 12,000 less than the national average, and the poverty rate is around 18%. Lujan Grisham, known for her national political ambitions, appeared on a nationwide public radio show to talk about the idea, which she said would boost not only the state’s economy, but its reputation and future as well. students.
But the plan, which was to be funded by revenues from hydraulic fracturing in the Permian Basin, never materialized. Grisham has faced opposition in the Legislature, even from members of his own party, and some university presidents skeptical of how much it would help low-income students.
Instead, the state implemented a massively scaled-down version of the idea in the 2020 legislative session that provides tuition assistance for residents enrolled in two-year colleges.
Students like Emily Jaramillo, 18, who was a high school student when the plan for a free college was announced, suddenly felt they had no options left. Jaramillo, a member of the Pueblo tribe, grew up on a reservation and relied on free education to become the first person in his family to attend college.
“The plan meant that children, especially those on the reserve, could get their education in their home countries,” she said. “Many of us had our hopes, and it all fell apart.”
When the plan was first announced, New Mexico’s oil industry was booming, accounting for nearly 40% of state general fund revenue in 2019. Suddenly New Mexico could afford invest in education, child care, highways and health care.
“Our tax house is in order. We are saving money,” Lujan Grisham said last year. “We have an oil and gas boom.”
The free tuition plan was backed by the New Mexico Oil & Gas Association, whose leaders believed this was exactly the kind of big thinking the state needed. But he also had his detractors.
“We’re in the biggest boom cycle of all time, but what’s it going to look like when we’re in a boom cycle?” State Senator Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, a Democrat, said in October 2019. But, she said recently, she “did not anticipate that the revenue stream would almost completely fall” as soon as she did.
After the coronavirus pandemic devastated international oil markets in April and prices fell, Lujan Grisham could no longer withdraw money from the Permian Basin, an oil field in West Texas and Southeastern Canada. New Mexico which had become the country’s first oil field thanks to a new horizontal. fracturing technology. As the economy collapsed, the state was forced to cut its budget and reconsider ambitious and expensive legislation.
Covid-19 has also led to less income and more expenses. In May, citing the state’s “high degree of sensitivity to changes in the oil and natural gas markets,” a group of state economists wrote in a note that the pandemic could cost New Mexico $ 2.1 billion to $ 3.9 billion in forecasted revenue over the next 12 months – a massive loss given that the entire state budget for fiscal 2021 stands at 7.22 billions of dollars.
“I’m not going to say I told you,” said Sedillo Lopez, who sponsored an unsuccessful bill last year calling for a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing on environmental grounds. “I am very sad about that. Our state was on a collision course with itself.”
Sedillo Lopez, who called Lujan Grisham an “excellent governor,” said she hopes the moment will serve as a wake-up call and force the state to reassess its relationship with oil and gas.
“What happened is what we feared would happen,” said Kyle Tisdel, a Taos-based attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center. “When New Mexico took such a big hit with falling prices and the corresponding loss of royalties, education was the first thing to do.”
Jonathon Juarez-Alonzo, 18, a freshman at the University of New Mexico, said he was grateful that he had not fallen victim to the state’s love affair with oil. Juarez-Alonzo, who is involved in local climate activism, described the plan for a free college as a “hostage situation,” in which his future was funded by the very thing he thought was killing her.
He said he was lucky his family were able to help him with his $ 20,000 per year tuition fee.
“I wasn’t trying to bet that our governor had promised a free university, because I didn’t think the money would always be there,” he said. “It was one of the most compelling topics, but lo and behold, it was not passed by our governor’s Democrat-controlled legislature.”
Lujan Grisham’s office said it was too busy dealing with the Covid-19 crisis to say whether it was still considering pursuing the free college plan. His office deferred the matters to the State Department of Higher Education, which said in a statement that “investing in higher education continues to be a priority” and that increasing income from sources other than the oil and gas industry is “more important than ever”.
But the state has said that to diversify the economy, it needs to invest in education. To invest in education, you need income. And for income, New Mexico relies heavily on oil.
“I fully support the diversification of our economy and the fact that our state has more than a thriving private sector industry that generates income and jobs,” said Ryan Flynn, executive director of the New Mexico Oil & Gas Association.
Even now, when times are tough on industry, underground oil wells keep the state budget afloat.
Jaramillo had hoped to study education at the University of New Mexico and use his degree on his reservation, Pueblo of Isleta, teaching native studies to his community. Instead, she took a job as an essential worker at a pharmacy after graduating from high school in May.
Although teaching remains her goal, she does not know how she will achieve it. She said the governor’s fanfare around the proposal had frustrated her.
“I don’t think it’s fair for someone in a place of power to raise student hopes like that,” Jaramillo said.
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