Santa Fe
New Mexico's Kindergarten Class Has Shrunk 20% Since 2016
In 2015-16, New Mexico's public schools enrolled 3,520 more kindergartners than 12th-graders. That surplus meant the system was replenishing itself: more students entering at the bottom than exiting a...
59 New Mexico Districts at Record-Low Enrollment
New Mexico's public schools enrolled 298,353 students in 2025-26, falling below 300,000 for the first time in the state's dataset. That 2.7% single-year drop, a loss of 8,333 students, is the largest ...
Six Years After COVID, 93 Districts Still Haven't Recovered
The pandemic was supposed to be a temporary shock. Albuquerque lost 6,684 students between 2019 and 2021, an extraordinary loss for any two-year period. But the five years since have been worse: APS s...
Espanola Has Lost More Than a Third of Its Students
In 2015-16, Espanola Public Schools enrolled 3,955 students. By 2025-26, that number had fallen to 2,480, a loss of 1,475 students and 37.3% of the district's enrollment. Among New Mexico districts th...
New Mexico's 2026 Enrollment Drop Is the Second-Largest on Record
Last year, New Mexico's enrollment appeared to be stabilizing. The state lost 4,211 students in 2024-25, a fraction of the COVID-era crash, and superintendents could reasonably hope the worst had pass...
New Mexico Falls Below 300,000 Students
In 10 years of enrollment data, New Mexico has had exactly one year without a decline: 2021-22, when the state gained four students. Four. Every other year, the count dropped. In 2025-26, it dropped b...
New Mexico Publishes 2025-26 Enrollment Data
A year ago, New Mexico lost 4,211 students. Superintendents talked about stabilization. The post-COVID hemorrhage, which had erased 14,323 students in a single year, seemed to be easing. The state had...