Most new SC voucher recipients already were being privately educated, state says

Out of the 10,000 current slots in the Education Scholarship Trust Fund program, 5,641 went to students who were attending a private school or being homeschooled last school year, according to the department’s numbers.

Another 2,000 were attending a public school, while 956 were incoming kindergarteners. The remaining recipients were holdovers from the 2024-25 school year, when participants were required to have attended a public school the year prior.

State Rep. Neal Collins, a critic of the program who requested the data from the Education Department, said the numbers show the scholarships are subsidizing students who were already getting a private education, rather than opening that option to others.

“To me, by definition, that’s not expanding choice,” the Easley Republican said.

State lawmakers opened the scholarships to private school students when they revamped the program last year after the S.C. Supreme Court struck down part of the 2023 iteration of the voucher program just weeks into its first school year. Students who previously attended a public school still get a priority application window.

The breakdown of recipients’ prior school was not much of a surprise, as thousands of the applicants to this year’s program already were attending private schools. Other states have seen similar trends, prompting critics to argue that the efforts are routing money to families who could already afford private schools.

Significantly more people applied for the scholarships ahead of this school year, which some state officials and school leaders previously attributed to increased awareness of the program. Some private schools listed information about the program on their website.

But school choice advocates say that helping parents better afford their kids’ school is a good thing, even if they were already outside the public system.

“There seems to be this idea that choice only counts the first year that it happens, which I don’t think is accurate,” said Ryan Dellinger, director of education policy for the Palmetto Promise Institute, a conservative think tank.

Those 5,641 students still had to meet the program’s income requirement, and some might have had to switch back to a public school that wasn’t working for them if it hadn’t been for the scholarships, he said.

Participants’ household income had to be below 300 percent of the federal poverty level to receive the vouchers this year, which was $96,450 for a family of four. Next year’s cap will rise to 500 percent, which is $165,000 for the same-sized family.

The program is set to be reviewed by the Legislative Audit Council after a bipartisan panel of five state senators said March 3 they would sign onto such a request, enough to trigger a probe. They were prompted by the ongoing controversy over the inclusion of some homeschooled children in the program, which the senators thought they had prohibited in the law.

“There are those who never thought something like this could work that are now saying to us, ‘I told you so,’ ” Sen. Darrell Jackson, D-Columbia, said.

The program is set to expand to 15,000 seats next year, as set by the 2025 law — though Senate Education Committee Chairman Greg Hembree, R-Little River, suggested the legislature should “tap the breaks” and keep it at 10,000 until the audit is finished.

In a March 3 statement, the Education Department reiterated its position that it had implemented the program as the law sets out, and said any attempt to alter it would “upend the educational plans of thousands of students and their families.”

“Families have relied on this law as it was plainly written by the General Assembly. When lawmakers give their word to families, that word should be ironclad,” State Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver said in the statement. “The lives of real South Carolina students are at the heart of this discussion. The Department will continue to administer the law faithfully and transparently for their benefit.”

Weaver and Gov. Henry McMaster and had asked lawmakers to expand the program further, to 20,000 students, but the budget advanced by the S.C. House Ways and Means Committee last month only funded the increase to 15,000 students. The full House is set to debate the budget next week.

Families can use the $7,500 scholarships for a range of different educational costs. Of the $95 million appropriated for the current year, about $40.4 million had been spent by Feb. 13, the department said.

About 74 percent of that total, nearly $29.9 million, went to private school tuition, and another 10 percent, $4.2 million, went to computers and other technology. Another $1.4 million and $1.1 million went to tutoring and instructional supplies, respectively, with less than $1 million each going to other categories including textbooks, uniforms and transportation.

Some parents in the program told the state Education Oversight Committee last year that private schools had removed a previously awarded tuition discount upon learning they were getting voucher money. Others said schools required employees whose children attend the school to pay tuition with the vouchers, even though the parents were supposed to get a tuition break as one of their employee benefits.

The Education Department said in its response to Collins, who sits on the EOC, that it did not have the authority to investigate tuition- or fee-setting practices or require any changes.

Much more of this year’s money went to private school tuition compared to the 2024-25 iteration because that part of the program was cut off by the Supreme Court in 2024, which ruled that it was unconstitutional to use public dollars to pay for private school education.

About 7,454 of the recipients currently are enrolled in a private school, while 540 attend a charter school and 614 attend a traditional public school.

Another 1,182 recipients are being educated at home, which has prompted controversy since both the 2023 and 2025 laws closed the program to homeschoolers.

But those students, who the Education Department calls “unbundlers,” aren’t technically being homeschooled under state law since they’re not part of any of its three official homeschooling systems. Instead, they’re being educated with materials and services their parents buy à la carte through the ESTF marketplace, which also fulfills the state’s compulsory attendance law.

Leaders in the S.C. Senate grilled Weaver over that system last month, which they see as a deliberate subversion of the legislature’s intent. A bill filed by Hembree meant to close that loophole was advanced to the full Senate Education Committee on March 3.

The Education Department says it sent legislators an FAQ document in March 2025 — before the passage of the revamped law — that included a description of the unbundling system, noting that the law “creates the ability to educate at home using the ESTF program.”

Hembree told reporters later March 3 that he thought its paragraph about the homeschooling part of the law was “very misleading.”

“It’s not like this thing was built, and thought about, and considered,” he said.

Hembree also said he plans to insert provisions into the state budget to close the loophole, which would be a temporary measure that could be easier to pass though the House of Representatives than a standalone bill.

His counterpart in the House, Education and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Shannon Erickson, said Feb. 24 that she’d learned about the unbundling system last year or the year before. She didn’t delve into it because she trusted the Education Department to follow and apply the law, she added.

“I lean heavily on the department,” the Beaufort Republican said. “Is the Senate absolutely within their power to look at that and see if it fits? 100 percent. But I’m the next layer on that, not the primary; right now I’m watching and waiting.”