New Mexico’s higher education institutions are seeing enrollment growth, second only to New Hampshire, with an increase of more than 4%. This year’s higher education budget had him over $1 billion, but the Higher Education Administration Wednesday asked the Legislative and Finance Committee for more.

Higher Education Secretary Stephanie Rodriguez has called for stronger loan repayment programs for educators and health professionals. This year, just over half of the approximately 1,800 applicants won awards, bringing the total to nearly $8 million. Rodriguez hopes to increase that to $10 million next year.

Rep. Nathan Small of D-Doña Ana said repaying loans was one of the best ways to encourage students to pursue needed careers, but he told Rodriguez that after the loans were forgiven asked the student what had happened.

According to Rodriguez, only about half of allied health professionals who provide services such as physical therapy and radiography next to doctors and nurses are in New Mexico. But for doctors, nurses and dentists, the numbers are much higher, she said. “For medical she’s in the 80th percentile, but for nursing she’s actually 93 percent,” she said.

This fall, more than 36,000 New Mexicans took advantage of opportunity scholarships for free college tuition.

This fiscal year, the Department of Higher Education set aside a total of $75 million for opportunity scholarships, and Rodriguez hopes to set aside $100 million next year.

In 2022, more than 10,000 students used state legislative lottery scholarships funded by state lottery earnings and boosted last year.

Rodriguez also called for the facilitation of dual-credit funding to help high school students pay for college tuition. Provided. This is more than double the $263,000 a year Tribal College currently receives.

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This report is part of the Your New Mexico Government project, a collaboration between KUNM Radio and New Mexico PBS. Public media support provided by the Thornberg Foundation.