Nearly three families applied for each free childcare seat for 2-year-olds in New York City’s program rolling out next month, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul said Tuesday.
Just over 2,000 families are receiving coveted offers in the debut of the marquee “2-K” initiative, out of more than 5,700 families who applied, according to city officials.
“The overwhelming demand for 2-K shows what families across the city have known for years: New Yorkers need free, universal childcare, and they need it now,” Mamdani said in a statement pledging to expand the initiative “until every family that wants a seat can get one.”
Mamdani and Hochul announced the offers at a press conference Tuesday morning at BedRock Preschool in Riverdale, alongside city Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels and other state and city officials.
Officials said 82% of the families receiving offers have been matched with one of their top three choices for center- and home-based programs across the five school districts where the initiative is launching. Most families have been matched to their first-choice program, and most of the seats will be “full-day and full-year,” though exact figures weren’t immediately provided.
Applicants who didn’t receive an initial offer will be contacted with information about waitlist options, according to City Hall. Families can continue to join 2-K waitlists regardless of whether they applied when applications opened in June.
Emily Liss, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Childcare and Early Childhood Education, said the city will make offers to families on the waitlist if any spots open up, before the first day of school on Sept. 10.
Applications were open to families with kids born in 2024, with those living in the five districts where the program is debuting getting priority. Those are District 6 in Manhattan (Washington Heights, Inwood and Hamilton Heights), District 10 in The Bronx (Fordham, Belmont, Norwood, Marble Hill, Morris Heights, Riverdale, Spuyten Duyvil, Van Cortlandt Village and Kingsbridge), Districts 18 and 23 in Brooklyn (Canarsie, Rugby-Remsen Village, Brownsville, Ocean Hill) and District 27 in Queens (Ozone Park, South Ozone Park, Richmond Hill, Woodhaven, Howard Beach and the Rockaways).
The Mamdani administration is promising to announce details later this year for the anticipated expansion of 2-K in the following school year, when officials say the program will expand to cover 12,000 children, including on Staten Island. Hochul has committed to funding the program for the first two years, at a cost of about $500 million, but has not guaranteed a specific amount of state support after that. The city already provides free pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds.
Hochul on Tuesday reiterated her commitment to fund the program through its second year, but said she could not “commit future budgets at this time.
“I’m excited about the growth of this,” she said. “This is just the very beginning. We know there’s a lot more families to be served, and we will serve them in a way we can afford.”
Mamdani campaigned on universal childcare for kids 6 weeks to 5 years old and has vowed to achieve fully universal childcare for 2-year-olds by the end of his first term. City Hall has yet to estimate a price tag for universal childcare for those under 5, but a recent analysis by the New School’s Center for New York City Affairs puts it at around $9 billion a year, or between $4 billion and $5 billion more than the city spent in fiscal year 2025.
The cost of childcare is one of the biggest pressures on families to leave the city or cut back on other expenses, according to advocates, experts and surveys. City Hall said families enrolled in 2-K will save $26,000 per year on average.
Claudia Irizarry Aponte contributed reporting.
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