Approximately $50 million in tax dollars will flow to private education programs in 2025-26
August 8th, 2025
The 2025-26 school year marks the first time that any New Hampshire student, regardless of family income, is eligible to apply for the Education Freedom Account program (EFA), which provides vouchers families can use to pay for private school tuition, educational supplies or activities, or other approved providers, which range from tutoring programs to ski mountains.
Legislation passed earlier this year allows up to 10,000 families, regardless of income or need, to enroll in the EFA program, which used to be limited to families with incomes below 350 percent of the federal poverty level. Families with incomes below that level, those whose students have an IEP, those who have previously been enrolled in the EFA program, and those enrolling a student who is a sibling of an EFA student are all given priority access to the voucher program.
Early reporting shows that the program received around 11,000 applications, and plans to fill the 10,000 seats. Approximately 300 students are currently on the waitlist. Officials have said that at least 60 percent of this year’s EFA recipients fall into at least one of the priority groups. Reporting has also noted that nearly 800 applications are still awaiting review. Because students from priority groups are always guaranteed a seat, total enrollment could grow, even while non-priority students remain on the waitlist. A representative from the Children’s Scholarship Fund NH, which administers the program, said mid-year enrollment could add as many as 1,000 additional recipients. (For that reason, we projected the cost of providing 10,000 vouchers and the cost of providing 11,000 vouchers.)
The NH Department of Education has yet to release any official data (we at Reaching Higher NH have requested it). But given what we know so far from media reports, we estimate that the state will pay approximately $50 million to families who have enrolled in the school voucher program. This is nearly twice what the EFA program cost last year, and $10 million more than the $39.3 million allocated in the budget.
Note: In 2021-22 and 2022-23, the EFA program also provided differentiated funding for students who had not yet reached a third grade reading level. Three students in each year received this differentiated aid, adding approximately $2,200 to each year’s funding total. Those numbers are reflected in the total costs shown in the table.
Assumptions driving this analysis
In 2025-26, the state will pay $4,265.64 per student in “base aid,” plus an additional $2,392.92 for students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch; $2,184.84 for students with an IEP; and $832.32 for students who are English language learners. The funding is additive, so for a student who qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch and has an IEP, the state would pay $8,843.40 (base aid + free and reduced lunch differentiated aid + special education differentiated aid), for example.
We don’t yet know how many of the 10,000 students are eligible for free lunch, receive special education services, or are English language learners. But based on past years’ data, we can make some assumptions:
-
Because free and reduced-price lunch students have always been eligible for EFAs without a cap, we assume enrollment patterns won’t change much. Over the past two years, EFA enrollment among this group has grown by an average of about 15%. Assuming the same rate of growth, we project approximately 2,200 of the 10,000 EFA recipients this year will receive the free and reduced-price lunch funding bonus. Because we’re using year-over-year growth, rather than share of enrollees, we kept this number the same for the 11,000 student projection.
-
Special education and ELL students were previously subject to the income cap, so we assume enrollment among students in those categories will grow proportionally. Since 2022, special education students have accounted for an average of 6.51% of EFA students, and ELL students 1.38%. Assuming participation continues in equal proportions, we project roughly 651 students will receive the special education differentiated funding and 19 students will receive ELL differentiated funding. Those numbers increase slightly for the 11,000 student projection.
Until the NH DOE or the Children’s Scholarship Fund NH release the data, we won’t know how many of these 10,000 students are switching from a public school to a private school, and taking their education funding dollars with them. Historically, public school switchers have accounted for an average of 25% of new EFA recipients in any given year; the rest of the new EFA recipients were already attending private schools or alternative options. If we assume the same holds true this year, that means 1,483 students will switch from public school to the EFA program, taking approximately $6.9 million in education funding with them.
Reaching Higher NH has a data request pending with the NH Department of Education in hopes of gathering more information that will help us better understand enrollment in the voucher program and its consequences for public schools and taxpayer dollars.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and join the New Hampshire Education Network (NHEN), our network of New Hampshire parents, educators, business leaders, and community members to stay up to date on the latest developments in education policy.