Universal voucher program signed into law despite concerns

June 11th, 2025

On Tuesday, June 10, Governor Kelly Ayotte signed SB 295 into law. The move makes New Hampshire the 19th state to establish a universal school voucher system.  

When initially proposed in the New Hampshire state legislature, vouchers were promoted as a way to give low-income families “school choice” and to provide increased access to options other than local public schools. Program data, however, shows that, in practice, Education Freedom Accounts are serving a different purpose.

Since the program’s launch, only 36%, or less than 2,000 participating students, used the money to access a new educational pathway. The balance used the voucher, approximately $5,200 per student, to fund choices they had already made.

Who has benefited from school vouchers?

The list of those benefiting from New Hampshire’s school voucher program is considerably different than supporters of the program had predicted. They have included:

  1. Families who had already made the choice to forego local district schools for another “educational pathway”

  2. Private Christian Schools

  3. Children’s Scholarship Fund New Hampshire, a New York based nonprofit who received a sole source contract to administer the program for the state

Late last year, the Concord Monitor began reporting a series entitled “Inside EFAs.” The series was intended to explore the state’s voucher program, known as Education Freedom Accounts, as the legislature debated whether and how to expand the program. The latest article in the series explores a topic that public school supporters have been warning about for years: the state’s school voucher program is fueling “a Christian school enrollment boom in New Hampshire.”

The data shared in the Concord Monitor article shows that private schools are directly benefiting from the program. Jeremy Margolis, journalist of the Concord Monitor, shared, “In the four years since New Hampshire launched a school voucher program, 11 of the 28 Christian schools in the state have either newly opened or grown by at least 50%.”

For example, Laconia Christian, which, according to this data receives the highest “EFA Amount”, has a tracker on their Admissions page sharing the percentage of students enrolled in their school using voucher funds. 

What to expect with Universal Vouchers? 

New Hampshire has now become the 19th State to enact universal school vouchers. Although there has been limited data collection and analysis on programs like these over the years, there are a few themes that can be seen:

Arizona, the first state to expand vouchers to all regardless of income, has seen very low participation for low-income families, considerable increases in new state spending, and an intense, nationally supported mis- and dis-information campaign regarding the implementation of the program. 

Although the details of how the program will grow and change in New Hampshire with the codification of SB 295 into law are unclear, there is no reason to think that our experience will be considerably different than the states that have gone before us. 

Last year, a subcommittee of lawmakers charged with overseeing the administration of the statewide voucher program had questioned the Children's Scholarship Fund about how vendors are approved by the Fund, where students take courses, how parent reimbursements are verified, and how private schools in the state are leveraging the voucher program to supplement their own financial aid programs. Those questions have largely remained unanswered despite a compliance review conducted by the NH Education Department. That review of 50 voucher accounts over a two-year period, found that 25% were missing information, including unverified residency and inaccurate income reporting. 

Outstanding Questions

How much will universal voucher expansion cost?

With the signing of SB 295 into law, New Hampshire’s school voucher program is now open to families of all incomes. In the 2024-2025 school year, school vouchers will cost the state approximately $26 million. The cost has surged since the program was created in 2021, far exceeding initial state cost estimates. The majority of the cost is new state spending since over 75% of students who received a voucher were not enrolled in public schools, and therefore had to be added to the state’s funding formula. Analysis by Reaching Higher New Hampshire estimates that, if those families who are now eligible take vouchers similar to the existing program, the cost to the state could be up to $102 million.

Are taxpayer dollars being spent responsibly and legally?

In 2022, the New Hampshire State Legislature passed HB 1135 requiring a performance audit of the department of education, education freedom account program. The audit, however, has never come to fruition. As reported by NHPR, Christine Young, director of audits for the Office of the Legislative Budget Assistant, told lawmakers:

“We could complete the audit of this chapter law based on what information we can audit and then issue a report to comply with the chapter law - That report would be very limited, because we can’t review much of the information that’s held by the scholarship organization.”

It has been the assertion of both the Commissioner of Education and the Children’s Scholarship Fund, the New York nonprofit hired to administer the program, that most of the data associated with the program, its operations, and expenditures belongs to the fund and they have no obligation to share it with the State. With the appointment of a new Commissioner, it is unclear whether NHED’s position on this will change. 

How will local public schools be impacted?

As a result of a pessimistic outlook for New Hampshire's economy, lower than expected business tax receipts, the elimination of the Interest and Dividends tax, and several pending expenses, namely payouts from the YDC Settlement Fund, the process to craft the ‘26/’27 State Budget was a bleak one. Every State department and program is slated to experience cuts EXCEPT school vouchers. The lack of attention paid to the State’s unconstitutional method for funding public schools combined with a timid response to the major special education funding shortfall and projected federal funding cuts, is sure to cause major problems for local public schools. Additionally, an effort known as the “Weyler Amendment” was added to the 2026-2027 state budget to help offset the impact of vouchers. The amendment would strip many education programs from being funded through the Education Trust Fund and instead require them to be funded from the General Fund requiring education programs to compete for general funds with other state programs, like Medicaid, Health and Human Services, and Transportation.

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