Eighteen states now have universal school choice programs, meaning every student qualifies regardless of family income. Dozens more offer some form of school choice through vouchers, tax-credit scholarships, education savings accounts, or open enrollment policies. The landscape has shifted dramatically in just the past two years, with several states creating new programs or expanding existing ones to cover all families.
States With Universal School Choice
A universal school choice program is one where all students are eligible, with no restrictions based on income, location, disability, or demographics. According to Ballotpedia, 18 states currently have at least one universal program:
- Arizona: Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA) and an individual income tax credit scholarship
- Arkansas: Children’s Educational Freedom Account Program (created 2023)
- Florida: Family Empowerment Scholarship and a tax credit scholarship program
- Idaho: Parental Choice Tax Credit (signed into law in 2025)
- Indiana: Choice Scholarship Program (expanded to universal eligibility in 2025)
- Iowa: Education Savings Account Program (created 2023) and a tuition and textbook tax credit
- Louisiana: LA GATOR Scholarship Program (created 2024)
- Minnesota: Education Deduction
- Montana: Tax credits for contributions to student scholarship organizations
- New Hampshire: Education Freedom Account Program
- North Carolina: Opportunity Scholarships
- Ohio: Multiple programs including a tax-credit scholarship, private school tax credit, home education tax credit, and the Educational Choice Scholarship
- Oklahoma: Parental Choice Tax Credit (created 2023)
- Tennessee: Education Freedom Scholarship Program (created 2025)
- Texas: Education Savings Account Program (created 2025)
- Utah: Fits All Scholarship Program (created 2023)
- West Virginia: Hope Scholarship Program (created 2021)
- Wyoming: Steamboat Legacy Scholarship (expanded to universal in 2025)
Many of these programs are quite new. Arizona was an early mover, but the biggest wave came between 2023 and 2025, when more than a dozen states either created or expanded programs to universal eligibility.
Types of School Choice Programs
School choice isn’t a single policy. States use different mechanisms, and many states offer more than one type. The three main categories for private school choice are vouchers, education savings accounts, and tax-credit scholarships. Beyond these, most states also have some form of public school open enrollment.
Vouchers
Vouchers, often called scholarship programs, let families use public funding to pay private school tuition. The state sets a dollar amount, usually based on what it would spend per student in a public school. There are currently 23 voucher programs across 13 states and the District of Columbia. Some are universal, while others limit eligibility by income or other criteria.
Education Savings Accounts
ESAs work differently from vouchers. The state deposits money into an account that a parent controls, and the family can spend those funds on a wider range of educational expenses: private school tuition, tutoring, online courses, homeschool curriculum, and other approved services. There are currently 17 ESA programs in 14 states. This is the fastest-growing category, with Texas, Tennessee, Wyoming, and others launching new ESA programs in 2025.
Tax-Credit Scholarships
These programs give tax credits to individuals or businesses that donate to nonprofit scholarship organizations. Those nonprofits then distribute the donated money as private school scholarships. Because the funding comes through tax credits rather than direct government spending, these programs are structured differently from vouchers, though the end result for families is similar. There are 25 tax-credit scholarship programs in 21 states.
How Much Families Receive
Award amounts vary widely by state and, in many cases, by family income. Even in states with universal eligibility, the dollar amount a family gets often scales based on what they earn.
North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarship program provides between roughly $3,000 and $7,000 per student, depending on household income. Families earning below about $60,000 (for a family of four) receive the full award. Families earning above $270,000 still qualify but receive only 45% of the maximum.
Ohio follows a similar sliding scale. Families earning up to about $145,000 for a family of four get the full voucher amount. Above that, the award decreases, bottoming out at 10% of the full amount for families earning $250,000 or more.
Among the newer programs, Idaho’s 2025 tax credit provides $5,000 per student (up to $7,500 for students with special needs), with a statewide cap of $50 million. Tennessee’s Education Freedom Scholarship provides around $7,300 per student, with 20,000 scholarships available in its first year. Half of those are reserved for lower-income families. Wyoming’s expanded program provides $7,000 per student.
These amounts rarely cover the full cost of private school tuition at more expensive institutions, so families often pay the difference out of pocket.
States With Limited School Choice
Many states have school choice programs that aren’t universal. Some restrict eligibility to low-income families, students with disabilities, students in underperforming schools, or students in specific geographic areas.
Alabama created the CHOOSE Act in 2024, which provides families up to $7,000 per child for private school starting in the 2025-2026 school year, but it’s not classified as universal. Georgia’s 2024 Promise Scholarship targets students zoned for the lowest-performing 25% of districts, offering $6,500 for private school and other expenses, with priority for families earning less than 400% of the federal poverty level. Missouri expanded the funding cap for its Empowerment Scholarships in 2024, which operate as tax-credit ESAs.
New Hampshire’s ESA program was previously limited to families earning at or below 3.5 times the federal poverty level (roughly $112,500 for a family of four) before expanding. Indiana’s voucher program had an income cap of about $240,000 for a family of four before its 2025 expansion made it universal. These examples illustrate how many states start with income-limited programs and gradually broaden access.
Public School Open Enrollment
School choice also includes the ability to attend a public school outside your assigned district. Forty-three states have policies that explicitly allow interdistrict open enrollment, where students can apply to attend schools in a different district. Of those, 24 states require districts to participate in open enrollment, while 28 have voluntary programs (some states have both mandatory and voluntary elements).
In a few states, open enrollment is tied to geography. Students facing long transportation times or geographic barriers to reaching their assigned school may have the right to attend a closer school in a different district. Open enrollment policies don’t involve any financial award to families. They simply let students cross district lines to attend a different public school, typically when the receiving school has available capacity.
The 2023-2025 Expansion Wave
The pace of school choice legislation accelerated sharply starting in 2023. Arkansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Utah all created new universal programs that year. In 2024, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Wyoming passed new programs, and Missouri expanded its existing one. The 2025 session brought universal programs in Idaho, Indiana, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming (which expanded its 2024 income-limited program to cover all students).
Most of this activity has occurred in states with Republican governors and legislatures. Every new program signed into law during 2024 and 2025 was enacted under a Republican governor. The political landscape means further expansions are more likely in Republican-controlled states, while states with divided government or Democratic leadership have generally not moved toward universal private school choice.
If you’re trying to find out whether your state has a program, your state’s department of education website will list current options, eligibility requirements, and application deadlines. Many programs have enrollment caps or application windows, so timing matters.