State Policy Action
States are continuing to examine whether and how school choice strategies can serve their communities. In 2023, 32 states as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico offered some form of school choice to families. However, one type of private school choice has gained momentum in recent years: education savings accounts.
Education savings accounts, or ESAs, are programs that route public per-pupil funding into government-authorized savings accounts for families with students not attending public schools. Families can use the funds for a variety of defined uses, including private school tuition, tutoring and online learning. The amount awarded varies by state and program, ranging from 27% of the state’s per-pupil spending to nearly 100%.
Thirteen states currently have ESA programs, and at least 36 states considered ESA legislation in 2023. The last three years have seen a shift not only in the volume of these bills, but also in the types of programs being created. Before 2021, ESAs were largely limited to students with individualized education plans, or IEPs, or students from low-income households. Existing programs in New Hampshire and North Carolina still exclusively serve students with disabilities or limited income, and some newly enacted programs mirror this type of targeted ESA program structure. Montana (HB 393; 2023) established the state’s first ESA for students with an IEP who are identified as “a child with disabilities” under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. South Carolina also enacted its first ESA program (SB 39; 2023), granting $6,000 to students who attended public school the prior school year and meet household income restrictions that scale down over three years.
Alternately, the country’s first ESA program, Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts , has expanded since its inception and reflects the recent trend toward universal eligibility. The program launched in 2011 and has undergone legislative updates to broaden the types of students who are eligible to participate. Like other ESA programs, Arizona’s started with students with disabilities but over time expanded to include students from military families, students in low-performing schools, students in foster care, students who live on Native American reservations, and students whose parents are legally blind, deaf or hard of hearing. In 2022 Arizona became the first state to offer universal ESA eligibility (HB 2853), defining a qualified student as any state resident who is eligible to enroll in a K-12 public school.
Universal eligibility opens a program to all students seeking educational options outside of public school, as opposed to the limited eligibility for specific types of students. West Virginia’s Hope Scholarship Program was one of the most expansive ESAs in the country when it was enacted in 2021. Under the program, any West Virginia student leaving a public school is eligible if they attended public school for at least 45 full-time instruction days that year or the entire prior school year. All kindergarten students are eligible regardless of their previous public-school attendance. The Hope Scholarship did not launch until 2022 due to legal proceedings, but nearly 5,800 students participated in the program during the 2023-24 school year, according to EdChoice. The state considered but did not pass HB 2619 to remove the previous public school enrollment requirement.
The 2023 legislative session brought several new programs as well as expansion to existing ESAs. Arkansas, Iowa and Utah all enacted new universal ESA programs, though Iowa and Arkansas have some eligibility restrictions for the first two years of rollout, then transition to fully universal programs by 2025. Florida (HB 1) expanded its existing program, the Family Empowerment Scholarship, making any Florida student eligible if they’re qualified to enroll in grades K-12 at a public school.
Most programs’ qualifying expenses include tuition and fees, curriculum and instructional or tutoring services. Some also included testing fees, technology devices or software, and transportation costs. In the case of Utah’s program, the legislation lists approved expenses and includes “any other expense for a good or service that a parent or scholarship student incurs in the education of the scholarship student and the program manager approves.”
As the 2024 legislative session unfolds, policymakers will continue to consider how education savings accounts might serve students and how the factors of student eligibility, account values and qualifying expenses shape both new and existing programs.
NCSL thanks EdChoice for its support of this brief.