In New York City, 3- and 4-year-old children can already go to preschool for free. Now, that program is expanding.<\/p>\n
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Thursday<\/a> that the city will provide free care to 2-year-old children, starting in \u201chigh-need\u201d areas in September, with funding provided by the state.<\/p>\n The city plans to cover every 2-year-old child by 2029.<\/p>\n Child care is often the largest monthly expense<\/a> for parents \u2014 or second biggest, after rent or a mortgage.<\/p>\n Even so, many providers are also struggling<\/a>. Some states and cities are trying to come up with solutions.<\/p>\n Julie Kashen, senior fellow at The Century Foundation, said child care is a textbook example of a broken market.<\/p>\n \u201cParents can\u2019t afford to pay more, but early educators who do this incredibly valuable work are underpaid,\u201d Kashen said.<\/p>\n Providing high-quality child care is a lot of work<\/a> and is expensive<\/a>, University of South Carolina professor Jessica Brown said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt takes a lot of people to care for kids, and so even at low wages, those low wages add up quickly,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s also benefits for the provider, and employer taxes, and the facility.\u201d<\/p>\n Kashen said it doesn\u2019t make sense to expect parents to fund it all themselves, and they shouldn\u2019t be asked to do so for preschool, either.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t ask a parent to show up with a check to pay for the bricks-and-mortar building of their K-12 education system, or to write the check for their third grade teachers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Vicki Shabo, senior fellow at the New America think tank, said more cities and states have been trying to find ways to make preschool more affordable in the last few years. New Mexico just became the first state to offer universal child care<\/a>.<\/a><\/p>\n