“There’s something ennobling…about struggling”: State policymakers’ framing of deservingness in the New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship

In 2022, New Mexico joined the list of states that adopted a statewide promise program, offering tuition and fee assistance for eligible students to pursue higher education. The New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship (NMOS) differs from existing programs by including part-time and summer enrollment, academic and workforce degrees, and older adult learners in addition to recent high school graduates. Drawing on approximately nine hours of legislative meetings and the theories of social construction and policy design and deservingness, this case study examines how state legislators framed their support or opposition to the design of the NMOS. We found that state legislators who supported the NMOS focused on individual benefits such as expanding access to higher education and improving employment outcomes, whereas state legislators who opposed the NMOS focused on state burdens such as insufficient funding and increased costs to the state due to the program’s flexible design.