Some private schools are causing tuition fees, while others are able to enroll more students to begin restructuring education across the country.
But so far, the biggest beneficiaries of the new program could be families whose children were already attending private schools, according to new research.
The study's authors, Douglas N. Harris, and Gabriel Olivier, an economist at Tulane University, found that many students who used vouchers to transition from public to private education enrolled in small religious schools with median tuition fees of $7,000.
Spending taxpayer dollars on private schools supports some core traditions of American public education, Dr. Harris argued that it includes public governance and the separation of church and state.
“This is the biggest change in education policy since Brown v. Council,” he said, referring to the 1954 Supreme Court lawsuit that banned schools in the South.
This report is one of the first to measure the effectiveness of a relatively new type of private school voucher called educational savings accounts. Accounts allow parents to spend public dollars on private education and homeschooling. These are available to families of all income levels in the 11 Republican-leaning states included in the study.
As voucher access has increased since 2021, many of the students who moved to private education appeared to have landed in “under the radar” religious schools, most of which are not Catholic, the authors found.
These schools often fell far below the average tuition fees for all private schools in America. It costs $13,000 a year.
However, as vouchers expand, these tuition fees could rise at least modestly.
Private schools in states with widespread access to vouchers increased by 5-10% over private schools in states without such policies, while registration increased by 3-4% over other states. (The increase in tuition fees was more likely in secular schools than in religious schools.)
The findings of the paper may provide feed to both voucher supporters and critics.
This year, that number has increased from 500,000 in 2019 to around 1.3 million. Governors across the country are now facing a decision on whether to include the state in President Trump's new federal private school selection program, which will expand access, including those who will acquire families worth the equivalent of families earning more than 300% in parts of the country.
Opponents argue that the universal voucher program is a giveaway to parents who can already afford private education, and that public money should be spent on public options, making it more transparent and accessible.
Supporters say public schools have failed some students and parents should have the freedom to use taxpayer dollars at schools that match their values.
The findings suggest that even if vouchers begin to change the landscape of private schools in America, they still haven't produced any major dents in public school admissions.
This paper also provides an unusual snapshot of what the landscape looks like now and how it is changing.
Name brand, academically elite prep school, is a small slice of the private school market. A typical American private school serves only 30 students, has modest tuition fees, and may meet in the church basement.
These types of schools benefit from oceanic changes in Republican education policies. During and after the Covid-19 pandemic, states from Arizona to Florida to Texas will create or expand educational savings accounts, often making them available to all families. Account sizes range from approximately $4,000 to $30,000 for students with disabilities.
Private school registration has increased around 35,000 students in the state that adopted a universal educational savings account, and another half a million students use vouchers nationwide, so data suggests that the voucher winner's “Lion's share” was already attending private schools before new accounts became available, Dr. Harris said.
The new research reflects data from Arizona, which began offering universal access to educational savings accounts in 2022. Initially, the majority of recipients were already enrolled in private schools, but their sharing has declined over time, and now it has dropped to around 45% of new participants in the program. Still, some of the richest regions in the state have the highest uptake.
It is difficult for low-income families to use private school vouchers. They may lack transportation to get to private schools and the value of the voucher may be less than the total cost of the tuition fee.
That may be why it was a smaller, cheaper, less established private school that was the most expanding in the early days of universal educational savings accounts.
This study found significant state-level differences in how these policies were deployed. Tuition fees for private schools have generally increased in states with taxpayer subsidies, but that was not true in Florida. That's why average tuition fees fell.
Patrick Wolf, a University of Arkansas voucher expert, has insisted that Florida parents could use their future money to surpass unused dollars in their educational savings accounts. This could put competitive pressure on private schools to reduce annual tuition fees.
He argued, overall, that the new research strengthened the debate in favour of private school choice. He said the paper showed that the average private school charges modest tuition and charges less expenditures per student than many public schools. So far, at least there have been no major departures from public education in the state that have accepted education savings accounts.
“The fate and dark predictions of many critics will be dispelled,” he said.
Still, there is a mix of recent research into whether students accepting vouchers are academically superior to those similar to those staying in public schools.
There is no comprehensive government data on who is using the voucher and how the money is being used. The challenge required the Tulane team to draw conclusions based on the trends in the registration and tuition fees of private schools in states with these policies, comparing them to other states. They are based on private school tax returns, federal data, information from private school reviews, and websites where schools promote programs and prices. They were able to look at data from private schools in 45 states in total.
The lead author of this study, Dr. Harris, is a well-known expert on school selection. He is best known for his research into how Hurricane Katrina reconstructed the New Orleans education system.
That series of studies suggested that increasing school choice within the public sector improves student outcomes. Charter schools are public schools managed independently of the district and must recognize students in the lottery.
Voucher policies differ in that they send public funds to private companies. For example, private schools do not need to provide disability services and can expel students to academic and behavioral tasks.
In many cases, they do not need to follow the same rules for publishing student tests and results.
So far, private school registrations have increased modestly due to voucher pushes. However, Dr. Harris predicted that in the coming years, private enrollment could increase significantly as parents become more knowledgeable about these programs.
