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PantryPath Research · School Hunger Atlas

School hunger in New Mexico

77% certified free/reduced

Across 832 public schools serving 304,280 students, 76.8% of New Mexico students are certified free or reduced-price. 660 schools (82% of NSLP participants) operate under the Community Eligibility Provision, and 39.9% of students are directly certified through SNAP, TANF, or Medicaid linkage.

304K

Students enrolled

832

Public schools (CCD)

660

CEP / Provision 2 schools

33

Counties in atlas

New Mexico by county

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Toggle between the school-food-access composite, free/reduced eligibility, CEP share, direct-certification rate, and SAIPE school-age poverty. Hover a county to see schools, enrollment, and the underlying certification mix.

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Lower
Higher

New Mexico at a glance

Free/reduced

76.8%

Share of enrollment

CEP share

82%

Of NSLP schools

Direct cert

39.9%

SNAP/TANF/Medicaid

NSLP schools

96%

Serve NSLP meals

5–17 in poverty

21.9%

Census SAIPE 2023

Access score

0.82

Composite 0–1

The access score is a 0–1 composite weighted 50% eligibility, 30% CEP share, 20% NSLP share — a visualization and ranking aid, not a direct measurement. See methodology.

County-level hotspots

Top five counties across 33 in New Mexico.

Highest free/reduced share

Certified ≤185% FPL per enrollment

  1. 1 Cibola 100.2%
  2. 2 Mora 100.0%
  3. 3 Luna 100.0%
  4. 4 Torrance 100.0%
  5. 5 Chaves 99.8%

Highest CEP adoption

Of NSLP schools — min. 3 NSLP schools

  1. 1 Cibola 100%
  2. 2 Colfax 100%
  3. 3 De Baca 100%
  4. 4 Grant 100%
  5. 5 Guadalupe 100%

Largest enrollment

Total students in CCD universe

  1. 1 Bernalillo 85K
  2. 2 Doña Ana 37K
  3. 3 Sandoval 21K
  4. 4 San Juan 20K
  5. 5 Santa Fe 20K

Every county in New Mexico

All 33 counties with school counts, enrollment, certification mix, CEP adoption, and the SAIPE 5–17 poverty backdrop.

County Schools Enrollment Free/reduced CEP Direct cert 5–17 poverty Access
Bernalillo 189 84,965 81.8% 75% 40.9% 17.0% 0.82
Catron 5 263 63.1% 60% 34.2% 34.8% 0.70
Chaves 31 10,585 99.8% 97% 40.6% 24.3% 0.99
Cibola 12 3,140 100.2% 100% 45.1% 29.7% 1.00
Colfax 15 1,416 73.3% 100% 39.6% 25.7% 0.87
Curry 27 8,563 94.2% 74% 36.6% 23.0% 0.89
De Baca 3 267 61.4% 100% 27.3% 29.1% 0.81
Doña Ana 75 36,822 96.0% 99% 42.3% 23.8% 0.97
Eddy 25 11,500 44.2% 58% 29.1% 18.4% 0.59
Grant 16 3,336 61.5% 100% 47.6% 25.4% 0.81
Guadalupe 7 627 68.3% 100% 41.6% 27.3% 0.84
Harding 4 171 47.4% 0% 25.1% 25.7% 0.44
Hidalgo 7 582 61.9% 100% 52.4% 32.0% 0.81
Lea 36 15,026 64.0% 74% 33.0% 19.3% 0.74
Lincoln 14 2,611 58.5% 100% 41.6% 27.9% 0.78
Los Alamos 8 3,723 12.7% 0% 6.9% 3.1% 0.24
Luna 12 5,182 100.0% 100% 51.8% 38.8% 1.00
McKinley 39 14,199 95.5% 97% 47.5% 41.1% 0.97
Mora 6 522 100.0% 100% 75.3% 28.8% 1.00
Otero 22 7,304 52.5% 77% 38.7% 32.7% 0.69
Quay 13 1,376 88.4% 75% 75.6% 32.1% 0.85
Rio Arriba 27 3,909 83.7% 85% 36.4% 24.9% 0.87
Roosevelt 13 3,150 74.1% 46% 40.0% 25.6% 0.71
San Juan 46 20,310 62.1% 83% 49.4% 24.9% 0.76
San Miguel 18 3,121 81.8% 100% 47.2% 30.1% 0.91
Sandoval 41 21,003 49.6% 97% 31.8% 15.5% 0.73
Santa Fe 47 19,632 60.9% 56% 33.1% 17.5% 0.65
Sierra 5 1,284 99.7% 100% 44.0% 33.8% 1.00
Socorro 10 1,835 89.5% 100% 45.6% 31.4% 0.95
Taos 20 3,649 87.5% 89% 42.3% 22.4% 0.88
Torrance 11 2,217 100.0% 100% 46.9% 29.8% 1.00
Union 6 536 55.6% 0% 37.1% 25.5% 0.48
Valencia 22 11,454 87.0% 100% 39.2% 22.4% 0.94

New Mexico school meals guide

How free and reduced-price school lunch eligibility works, application steps, and what to do if your child's school is not in CEP.

School meals guide

Summer meals

When the school year ends, NSLP and CEP stop. The Summer Food Service Program and Summer EBT fill the gap for the 233,679 children who rely on school meals in New Mexico.

Summer meals guide

Families with children

SNAP, WIC, Head Start, and the full federal-program stack for households with kids — the assistance ecosystem around the school cafeteria.

Families guide

New Mexico child poverty

The sibling atlas — county-level child poverty across New Mexico. Free/reduced eligibility and child poverty track each other closely but not perfectly.

New Mexico child poverty atlas

New Mexico pantries

Verified food pantries, food banks, and meal programs across New Mexico — open weeknights, weekends, and through the summer gap.

New Mexico pantry directory

Methodology

How we aggregated NCES Common Core of Data school-level records to counties, proxied CEP from lunch_program == 2, and layered SAIPE school-age poverty — plus the access-score formula.

Full methodology