Billions in taxpayer dollars now go to religious schools via vouchers
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) signs a measure creating a school voucher program last year in Little Rock. (Andrew Demillo/AP)
The rapid expansion of state voucher programs follows court decisions that have eroded the separation between church and state.
by Laura Meckler and Michelle Boorstein
Billions in taxpayer dollars are being used to pay tuition at religious schools throughout the country, as state voucher programs expand dramatically and the line separating public education and religion fades.
School vouchers can be used at almost any private school, but the vast majority of the money is being directed to religious schools, according to a Washington Post examination of the nation’s largest voucher programs.
Vouchers, government money that covers education costs for families outside the public schools, vary by state but offer up to $16,000 per student per year, and in many cases fully cover the cost of tuition at private schools. In some schools, a large share of the student body is benefiting from a voucher, meaning a significant portion of the school’s funding is coming directly from the government.
In just five states with expansive programs, more than 700,000 students benefited from vouchers this school year. (Those same states had a total of about 935,000 private school students in 2021, the most recent year for which data are available.) An additional 200,000 were subsidized in the rest of the country, according to tracking by EdChoice, a voucher advocacy group. That suggests a substantial share of about 4.7 million students attending private school nationwide are benefiting from vouchers — a number that is expected to grow.
The programs, popular with conservatives, are rapidly growing in GOP-run states, with a total of 29 states plus D.C. operating some sort of voucher system. Eight states created or expanded voucher programs last year, and this year, Alabama, Georgia and Missouri have approved or expanded voucher-type programs. Some recently enacted plans are just starting to take effect or will be phased in over the next few years.
The growth follows a string of recent victories in the Supreme Court and state legislatures by religious conservatives who have campaigned to tear down what once were constitutional prohibitions against spending tax money directly on religious education. It also marks a win for the school choice movement, which has spent decades campaigning to let parents use tax money for any school they see fit.
Voucher programs, which vary in their details, have grown particularly large in a half-dozen states. In each of these, participating families have overwhelmingly chosen religious schools, sometimes using the subsidy for schools their children were already attending before the programs began.
In Ohio, the GOP legislature last year significantly expanded its voucher program to make almost every student eligible for thousands of dollars to attend private school. As a result, more than 150,000 students are paying tuition with vouchers this year — up from about 61,000 in 2020. About 91 percent of this year’s voucher recipients attend religious schools, the Post analysis found. When vouchers for students with autism and other disabilities — who typically seek specific services — are removed from the list, the portion going toward religious education rises to 98 percent. (Unless otherwise noted, the Post calculations exclude schools for students with disabilities.)
In Wisconsin, 96 percent of about 55,000 vouchers given this school year went toward religious schools, The Post found. In Indiana, 98 percent of vouchers go to religious schools. (Indiana state data only specifies the number of vouchers for schools with at least 10 recipients.)
In Florida, several programs combine to make every student in the state eligible for vouchers, with more than 400,000 participating this year. At least 82 percent of students attend religious schools, The Post found. Florida is first in the nation in both the number of enrolled students and total cost of the voucher program — more than $3 billion this year.
And in Arizona, more than 75,000 students are benefiting from the Empowerment Scholarship Program, which pays for any educational expense. In 2022-2023, three-fourths of the money — about $229 million — went to 184 vendors. Most of that money went for tuition, 87 percent of it to religious schools.
Arizona also has an older voucher program, funded by tax credits, which last year subsidized tuition for at least 30,000 students. (The state tracks only the number of scholarships given, and one student can receive multiple scholarships.) Since this program was created in 1998, 19 of the 20 schools that received the most money were religious, according to a state report. Those 19 schools received about 96 percent of the $767 million spent between 1998 and 2023 at the top 20 schools.
Members of Save Our Schools Arizona protest at the Arizona School for the Arts in 2017 as then-Gov. Doug Ducey (R) toured the Phoenix school. The group sought to delay expansion of the state's school choice program. (Ross D. Franklin/AP)
Pennsylvania also has a large program, but state data does not show which schools families choose. Studies of states with smaller programs such as one in North Carolina and another in Illinois show that their payments, like those of larger programs, are concentrated toward religious schools.
The largest conservative state without a program — Texas — moved closer to one Tuesday when several Republicans who had opposed vouchers were defeated in legislative runoffs by pro-voucher candidates.
Supporters say these programs give parents more choices and that religious schools are receiving this money because parents see these schools as the right place for their children.
“It’s the parents’ money to use as they see is best,” said Brian Hickey, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Ohio. “We don’t necessarily see it as taxpayer money.”
To critics, the burgeoning number of taxpayer-financed religious students adds up to an unwelcome mingling of government and religion, and a drain on dollars that could support public schools, which unlike private schools are required to serve all students. That occurs both when public school students use vouchers to attend private schools — meaning their public schools lose per-pupil funding — and when the state spends large amounts of money on students whose families would otherwise pay private school tuition themselves.
A coalition of Ohio public school districts is suing the state to halt its program, charging among other things that it depletes resources meant for public schools. “Because public funds are finite, funding EdChoice Program Vouchers … inevitably depletes the resources designated by the legislature for educating Ohio’s public school students,” the suit alleges.