Free 3-K and Pre-K for ALL New York State’s three and four year olds

Parents are collectively spending $4 billion a year on 3-K and Pre-K and completely left to their own devices, unless they are living in NYC. This means they are leaving the state, leaving our workforce, and struggling to get by.

• Access is a patchwork of opportunity, dependent on a child’s school district.

• Outside of New York City, 36% of four-year-olds and 96% of three- year-olds don’t have access to publicly-funded free preschool.

• Child care providers don’t have

  enough state funding to run quality

  programs or pay staff what they need.

  • School districts aren’t required to

  provide publicly-funding pre-K and 3-K,

  leaving many families scrambling.

  • Children with disabilities are not receiving their mandated preschool special education services
  

• Create a State-Wide Requirement for Pre-K and 3-K. Every district must guarantee access to universal Pre-K and 3-K.

  • Appropriately Fund Preschool Education by increasing the per-child rate to reflect the true cost of high-quality care.

  • Invest in Providers and Infrastructure by prioritizing workforce development, and establishing a statewide early educator pay scale with parity to K-12 teachers; creating on-ramps for home-based providers; and stabilizing infant and toddler care during expansion.

We estimate this would require a new annual investment of about $2 billion to guarantee universal preschool access to three- and four-year-olds statewide:

• $500 million for pre-K.

• $1.5 billion for 3-K.

• There are additional one-time capital and operating expense investments required to build out physical capacity, bolster the workforce, and build capacity within school districts.

To get us on Governor Hochul’s promised path to universal child care, the state must make this critical investment now.

The state could fund this guarantee without even raising tax rates. In 2025, the state had $5.6 billion more in revenue than projected from personal income and business taxes.

The return on investment for preschool education more than justifies the cost:

• Parents are already spending $14 Billion a year on child care collectively

• Economists estimate that every dollar spent on high-quality pre-K returns $13 in economic benefits over the long term.

• A $2 billion investment in statewide 3-K and pre-K today would yield a $26 billion return.

But we need to fund for the long term. In our five-year roadmap for universal public child care, New Yorkers United for Child Care called for new revenue that is:

• Permanent

• Progressive

• Dedicated

Based on these principles, potential revenue sources could include an increase in

• Capital gains taxes — couldraise $12.5 billion annually

• Corporate taxes — could raise $7 billion annually

• High-earners income tax — could raise up to $20 billion annually