North Carolina’s private school voucher program, formally known as the “Opportunity Scholarship” program, was created by Republican lawmakers in 2013. It has grown dramatically in size, most recently authorizing approximately $590 million in private school vouchers. That worked out, for the 2024-2025 school year, to an average of $5,355 per recipient.
The program is overseen by the North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority (NCSEAA), an agency created in 1965 to administer higher-education scholarship funds. Its role was expanded to include oversight of the private school voucher program in 2013.
Over the last three years, the voucher program has expanded dramatically in scope.
In 2023, the state issued $185,554,831 to 32,549 students enrolled in 592 schools. An analysis published by Kris Nordstrom with the Justice Center in June of 2023 identified 43 schools that received more vouchers than there were students enrolled.
Subsequent changes to the data reporting have made it harder to scrutinize the relationship between reported enrollment and voucher spending. Enrollment data is now reported only in an October report to the General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee.
For the 2024-2025 school year, that report identified $432,238,544 received by 80,472 students at 642 schools.
This year’s enrollment report is not yet out, but the Summary Data dashboard indicates that $589,039,285 went to 703 schools.
A Reporting Hiccup
The NCSEAA has, in recent years, made two reports annually concerning school vouchers. One is an October report to the NC General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee, co-chaired by Rep. Hugh Blackwell (R-Burke), Rep. Tricia Cotham (R-Mecklenburg), and Sen. Brad Overcash (R-Gaston). The other is an annual report that appears on the agency’s Summary Data dashboard.
For the 2024-2025 school year, the two reports contain different information. Some of that is by design: the October reports for the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years (both available here) include School Name, the number of Voucher Recipients at each school, and the Total Voucher Funds received by each school. The public dashboard, meanwhile, contains only School Name and Total Voucher Funds.
The October 2025 NCSEAA report to the General Assembly includes 639 schools and claims that 80,472 voucher recipients received $432,238,544.
The NCSEAA’s Summary Data dashboard lists 642 schools with 80,472 students and $432,238,544 million in spending.
The NCSEAA’s October NCGA report has three fewer schools than its Summary Data report. A closer examination of the data reveals that this is pretty clearly due to a transcription error in the preparation of their report.
It’s possible to correct the data by undertaking a side-by-side comparison of the October 25 NCGA report and the Summary Data, though there is no enrollment data for three schools accidentally cut from the NCGA report: Yadkin Path Montessori Salisbury, Yadkin Valley Community School Elkin, and Zion Academy Stoneville.
Takeaways
North Carolina’s voucher program has siphoned more and more money out of the free, universally accessible public school system and into exclusive private schools. One troublesome feature of the voucher program is that it allows for private gain at public expense.
The only restriction on how voucher dollars may be spent is that families must spend them on tuition, books, transportation fees, and items or equipment required by the school.
A private school operator could, therefore, run the school out of their home and use the voucher dollars to pay down a mortgage. They could purchase a building specifically to run a school, use voucher dollars to cover some or all of the mortgage, and then sell the building at any time –realizing a profit on ‘their’ equity, which had been paid for with taxpayer money.
Unlike other government assistance programs, like EBT (food stamps) or Medicaid, the private school voucher program does not provide access to something that voucher recipients don’t already have. Every voucher recipient has access to a free public school. EBT recipients can’t afford food. Medicaid recipients can’t afford medical care.
The voucher program siphons public money for private gain. And it doesn’t even have income eligibility limits.
Private schools are also allowed to establish discriminatory admissions requirements, are not required to hire licensed teachers, and have no curricular or instructional requirements. They are not required to use the same testing regimen used by public schools and they aren’t subject to the same reporting requirements, making an apples-to-apples comparison of student performance at public and private schools impossible.
For as long as the state’s private school voucher program persists, it’s vital that the members of the General Assembly and the public have access to complete and accurate records concerning the use of taxpayer dollars.
