Rapidly expanding school voucher programs pinch state budgets

A sign held by a teacher at a rally at the Arizona Capitol on June 5, 2024, to advocate for restrictions on the state’s school voucher system, known as Empowerment Scholarship Accounts. (Jerod MacDonald-Evoy/Arizona Mirror)

In submitting her updated budget proposal in March, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs lamented the rising costs of the state’s school vouchers program that directs public dollars to pay private school tuition.

Characterizing vouchers as an “entitlement program,” Hobbs said the state could spend more than $1 billion subsidizing private education in the upcoming fiscal year. The Democratic governor said those expenses could crowd out other budget priorities, including disability programs and pay raises for firefighters and state troopers.

It’s a dilemma that some budget experts fear will become more common nationwide as the costs of school choice measures mount across the states, reaching billions of dollars each year.

“School vouchers are increasingly eating up state budgets in a way that I don’t think is sustainable long term,” said Whitney Tucker, director of state fiscal policy research at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank that advocates for left-leaning tax policies.

Vouchers and scholarship programs, which use taxpayer money to cover private school tuition, are part of the wider school choice movement that also includes charter schools and other alternatives to public schools.

Opponents have long warned about vouchers draining resources from public education as students move from public schools to private ones. But research into several programs has shown many voucher recipients already were enrolled in private schools. That means universal vouchers could drive up costs by creating two parallel education systems — both funded by taxpayers.

School vouchers are increasingly eating up state budgets in a way that I don’t think is sustainable long term.

– Whitney Tucker, director of state fiscal policy research at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

In Arizona, state officials reported most private school students receiving vouchers in the first two years of the expanded program were not previously enrolled in public schools. In fiscal year 2024, more than half the state’s 75,000 voucher recipients were previously enrolled in private schools or were being homeschooled.

“Vouchers don’t shift costs — they add costs,” Joshua Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University who…