Vouchers use public money to pay for private school tuition.
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A program that grants taxpayer-funded stipends to families looking to send their children to private schools is expected to reach capacity in its first year, says acting Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock.
Gov. Greg Abbott has long championed the “school choice” policy, which finally passed through the Legislature last summer after failing in the 2023 session. Critics have argued that the initiative will draw students away from public schools, which are already struggling to maintain class sizes. Because state funding for public schools is determined by attendance, opponents of the voucher system have warned that the stipends will undermine public education by diverting funds from the school districts that serve the majority of Texas children.
Despite those criticisms, hundreds of thousands of Texans have expressed interest in the Texas Education Freedom Accounts (TEFA), which will give parents around $10,500 to put toward private school tuition. According to data from the comptroller’s office, more than 163,000 TEFA applications were submitted between Feb. 4 and March 8. The deadline to apply is March 17.
Of those applications, thousands are from families zoned to Dallas-area schools, although it is unclear what percentage of the families who have applied currently have students in public schools. Nearly 5,300 applications have been submitted by families living within the Dallas ISD district. Dallas ISD is the second-most-represented district among the applications, beaten only by Houston ISD.
Fort Worth ISD and Plano ISD are also among the top 10 districts for TEFA applications, with 3,151 and 2,875 submissions, respectively. Between 1,700 and 1,800 families zoned to Richardson ISD, Frisco ISD and Arlington ISD have applied for the voucher funding.
While the funds can be used for private school tuition or to offset the costs of homeschooling, nearly 80% of applicants have signaled they intend to use the money for tuition payments, the comptroller’s office reports. The program is expected to launch for the 2026-2027 school year.
Senate Bill 2, which outlined the TEFA program, caps spending at $1 billion over the next two years. Because of limited funding, a priority system has been established to guide the lottery that determines who will receive the education stipends. Students with disabilities who live in a home making at or below 500% of the federal poverty level (around $160,000 for a family of four) will be the most prioritized. According to the Comptroller’s Office, around 11% of applicants fit that criteria.
Families at or below 200% of the federal poverty level, which amounts to just over $64,000 annually for a family of four, are next in line for TEFA. Thirty percent of applications fit that demographic category. Another 31% of applicants are between 200% and 500% of the federal poverty level, and 23% of applications are from families making more than $160,000 annually — the lowest tier in the comptroller’s priority ranking.
Opponents of school vouchers have warned that the funding could be used to subsidize families already enrolled in private schools. While the provided data does not clarify where students were enrolled previously for the 95% of applicants already mentioned, it does clarify that the remaining 5% of applications came from families making more than 500% of the federal poverty level who were enrolled in public schools this year.
Unlike public schools, which are required to teach any student that enrolls, private schools are not mandated to accept a student just because they have received TEFA funding. In fact, several of Dallas’ highest caliber private schools have signaled that they will not participate in the voucher program, which supporters claimed would level the playing field for needy families.
According to reporting by The Dallas Morning News, the Hockaday School, St. Mark’s School of Texas, Greenhill School and the Episcopal School of Dallas will not accept TEFA funding in the upcoming school year.