Universal Pre-K In NJ: Gov. Murphy Adding $120M To Expand Child-Care Facilities, Meet Goal

MONMOUTH JUNCTION, NJ — The state will make $120 million in grants available to expand preschool facilities, which Gov. Phil Murphy says will bring New Jersey closer to his administration's goal of universal Pre-K.

The funding will come from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 — a federal COVID-19 stimulus package. The New Jersey Department of Education will accept grant applications from regular operating districts (RODs) from March 1 to May 31. The number of awardees will depend on the applications received, according to a department spokesperson.

Since first campaigning for governor, Murphy has stated a goal to guarantee full-day, "high-quality" preschool education to all 3- and 4-year-olds in the state. The governor has shifted his administration's target date for universal pre-K during his time in office, but Murphy said in late 2021 that New Jersey would reach the goal in "2030 (at) the latest. I hope sooner than that."

The state's financing for reaching the universal Pre-K goal has come in chunks since Murphy took office in 2018. Enacting the plan will require some school districts and child-care providers to expand their facilities, which the grants will aid, Murphy said during a Wednesday news conference in an elementary-school library in Monmouth Junction.

The governor will include further funding for expanding preschool access in his proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2024, which he plans to introduce next week.

"As much as we’d like to see that (universal pre-K) happen, it takes a village," Murphy said Wednesday. "We need legislators to step up and go along with it."

The state will award grants on a reimbursement process, dependent upon when school districts' construction occurs. The state education department will prioritize grants in the following order:

1. Proposals to increase available preschool seats by at least 10 percent, ranked by the percentage of increased seats.
2. Proposals to enhance preschool facilities by increasing the capacity of existing classrooms or by constructing/rehabilitating restrooms.
3. Proposals to expand preschool programs from half-day to full-day.
4. Proposals to expand classroom capacity to house new preschool programs and guarantee additional seats.

Since taking the governorship, 150 school districts in the state added "high-quality" preschool programs, Murphy says, resulting in full-day seats for an additional 12,000 children.

Guaranteed access to state-funded preschool remains a distant dream for much of the country. Washington, D.C., has come closest, serving 73 percent of 3-year-olds and 84 percent of 4-year-olds, according to a 2021 report from the National Institute for Early Education Research.

The pandemic also intensified existing issues with preschool access around the country. Despite steady increases in funding, New Jersey's enrollment in state-funded preschool programs decreased by 8,518 students in 2020-21, to 46,895 children, the report states.

Only 31.5 percent of the state's 4-year-olds are enrolled in state-funded preschool programs, according to recent estimates that Wells Fargo shared.

During his campaign in 2017, Murphy estimated that universal pre-K would cost the state $600-650 million, telling The New York Times that "we can’t get there in one or two years." In 2018, the governor said New Jersey could meet the goal by 2022. But the window has since shifted with a plan to bring universal pre-K to New Jersey closer to the end of the decade.