More NC families would qualify for private school vouchers under massive program in state budget
More families would qualify for publicly funded private school vouchers under a massive expansion of the state's Opportunity Scholarship program that was folded into the state budget proposed by Republican leaders in the General Assembly.
The Opportunity Scholarship program currently serves mostly low-income families and some middle-income families, providing applicants with a voucher to help pay for private school tuition for their children. The expansion, pushed by Republican lawmakers and conservative lobbyists nationwide, would make families of all incomes eligible for the voucher and quadruple the program’s funding to more than half a billion dollars.
That would make it one of the largest education line items in the state’s budget. Families already paying to send their children to private school would be eligible to apply for the funding.
If lawmakers approve this version of the budget during meetings this week, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper — a staunch opponent of private school vouchers — would be forced to decide whether to veto or allow to become law a budget that also includes one of Cooper's top policy goals: Medicaid expansion, which would extend health insurance to hundreds of thousands of the state's working poor.
Cooper and other opponents of the school voucher expansion argue, among other things, that it would hurt public schools, which would lose funding that can’t easily be cut, without providing a measurable benefit to children’s education.
Supporters have argued families want more private school options and that schools don’t need money for the students they’re losing.
The measure, while controversial, has fared well in legislative settings, dominated by conservative lawmakers.
The North Carolina House of Representatives approved the Opportunity Scholarship expansion in a separate bill this spring. The Senate education committee approved it this spring, as well, before Senate leadership proposed including the expansion in its budget proposal.
North Carolina’s proposed expansion would still prioritize the lowest-income families before the highest-income families. The first 50% of funds would be reserved for the lowest-income families, who would retain priority even once that threshold is reached.
Higher-income families would receive scholarships in lesser dollars amounts, down to 45% of the maximum scholarship.
The maximum scholarship amount would also rise from just above $6,000 to $7,213. The amount available to the highest-income families would be $3,246.
The proposed expansion would about double the current funding available for the program, from $133 million last year to $263.5 million this year. Next year, it would be $354.5 million. It would top $400 million the year after that and rise above $500 million by the end of the decade.
That would pull more tens of thousands more students out of public school, eventually drawing more than $200 million out of public schools during the 2026-27 school year, according to one estimate.
Because the scholarships can amount to less than what the state spends on each public school student, the state can actually save money by sending children to private school instead. However, the budget bill would give public schools the savings beginning in the 2025-26 school year. Public schools would still lose funding overall for the loss of the students.
