(The Center Square) — New Hampshire lawmakers are moving to lift income eligibility caps on a popular state program that diverts taxpayer money for students to attend private and religious schools and homeschooling.
The Republican-controlled state House of Representatives and Senate have both approved plans to eliminate the income eligibility requirements for the state’s Education Freedom Accounts, allowing every family to apply for scholarships under the program. The current limit is $109,200 for a family of four.
The House approved a bill on Thursday, which narrowly passed on a 198-180 party-line vote. The bill would raise the EFA program’s income cap temporarily to 400% of the federal poverty level before scrapping it entirely by July 2026.
A Senate bill approved Friday also called for a phased approach that would eventually lead to universal eligibility for funding from the program.
Backers of making the vouchers “universal” for New Hampshire families, regardless of their income, say it would provide more families with the option of sending their children to private and parochial schools or cover their homeschooling expenses.
“Education should not be a one-size-fits-all approach, because one size does not fit all,” state Rep. Valerie McDonnell, a Salem Republican who sponsored the House bill, said in remarks. “This change levels the playing field.”
New Hampshire is expected to spend nearly $28 million on the EFA program to fund private and religious school education in the current school year, with an average grant of $5,300 per student, according to the Children’s Scholarship Fund, which oversees the program.
Demand for the vouchers has increased dramatically since the plan was first rolled out. The number of students receiving funding from the program increased from 4,663 during the 2023-2024 academic year to 5,321 at the start of the 2024-2025 academic year, according to the state Department of Education. That’s an increase of about 14% or 658 students.
Democrats and other critics argue that New Hampshire’s EFA program, which was created in 2021, siphons away tax dollars from local school districts, forcing communities to increase property taxes. New Hampshire’s local property tax burden is among the highest in the nation. They’ve pitched plans to limit the EFA expansion and require income verification for families in the program, but those attempts failed along party lines.
Teachers’ unions also oppose the EFA program and argue that lifting the income cap would divert millions of public dollars from public schools to subsidize private education so wealthy families could send their kids to private schools.
A recent study by Reaching Higher New Hampshire, a Concord-based public interest research group, found that lifting the EFA income eligibility cap could cost the state more than $102 million in the 2025-2026 school year.
Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte supports making the program universal for families of all income levels but recently suggested the state might not be able to approve the changes this year as it wrestles with budget shortfalls.
Nationwide, the 32 states with some form of school vouchers provided an estimated $6.2 billion in subsidies to nearly 1 million students through vouchers, education savings accounts, tax credits, charter schools and other forms of school choice, according to a recent EdChoice report.
