New MexicoHigher education institutions would report parents’ education data
If enacted, New Mexico colleges and universities would collect voluntary information about students’ parents, guardians or fictive kin and report it to the state.
What it does
Higher education institutions would ask applicants or registrants for voluntary information about their parents’, guardians’ or fictive kin’s education and report it to the state department.
Officials could group the information by geographic area to protect privacy and use it to study disparities, support research and grants, and guide education and funding decisions.
Argument forGrouped information could help schools spot education gaps among students’ families and improve services without identifying individual students.
Argument againstEven with geographic grouping, collecting family education information could raise privacy concerns if small groups make people easier to identify.
More detail
New Mexico higher education institutions would collect and report voluntarily provided information about a prospective student’s parent, legal guardian or fictive kin. The requirement covers the higher education institutions listed in Article 12, Section 11 of the New Mexico Constitution and the educational attainment of those family or caregiver figures. Students would provide the information voluntarily. Institutions would report this information separately and alongside other demographic information to the Higher Education Department. The department would publish the information separately and combined with other institutional demographic data.
Institutions and the Higher Education Department could combine the data into larger geographic groups and use it for comparisons, research, grants and policy decisions. The data could be grouped statewide or by county, municipality, census tract or ZIP code, and could be used by institutions or the department. Officials would need to group the data to help prevent identifying individuals and to avoid unreliable statistics. Approved academic research would be allowed. The data could support educational services, demographic disparity reviews, grant reports, and academic or funding decisions.
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Where it stands
- Introduced
- Passed House
- Passed Senate
- To Governor
- Became Law
Looking ahead
No hearings or votes scheduled.
History
- 2026
- Mar 24action postponed indefinitelyLatest
- Jan 22not printed House Rules and Order of Business CommitteeIntroduced
EducationAI & Privacy