With promises of greater parental freedom to choose schools and autonomy over the use of education funds, universal school choice programs have expanded in recent years. Over the past year, states like Tennessee and Texas have created entirely new universal school choice programs while others, such as New Hampshire and Wyoming, revised eligibility criteria for existing programs. The first statewide school choice program with universal eligibility was introduced in 2022. Programs with universal eligibility now exist in at least 18 states.
“Universal” is often used — as above — to describe any program that is open to all students in a state. These programs don’t include eligibility criteria that have traditionally been attached to school choice programs (e.g., a student’s household income or previous public school attendance). However, in practice, few states have been able to provide sufficient funding to allow for the participation of every eligible student.
An Example of a Fully Funded Program
Arizona is among the few that have. The state is fully funding the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, which has granted universal eligibility to in-state students since 2022. The program awards the same base amount of funding to every eligible student who enrolls and includes additional funding for students with disabilities. There is no cap on the number of students who may participate — as of January 2026, enrollment has surpassed 99,000.
The lack of an enrollment cap or a fixed appropriation limit presents a financial tradeoff for the state. The concerns are that growing participation will make the program fiscally unsustainable. Analyses indicate that the majority of students who took advantage of the new universal program in its first year were from wealthier communities, and most were not previously attending public schools. These students’ enrollment presented an entirely new cost to the state — contributing to a total cost of $708.5 million in the program’s first two operating years. However, some fiscal analyses of the program’s early years counter this narrative and suggest that net costs of the program are lower than critics claim.
Strategic Program Design
Other states have adopted various guardrails and limitations in the design of universal school programs to avoid potential equity and cost tradeoffs. New Hampshire’s recently updated Education Freedom Account (EFA) program and Texas’s new program of the same name both incorporate universal eligibility but employ a priority order to ensure that funds are directed to students with the most significant needs first. Among other criteria, both states prioritize students based on annual household income.
However, the programs differ in how they plan to avoid open-ended or unpredictable growth in program costs. New Hampshire’s program includes an initial enrollment cap of 10,000 students — though the cap is flexible and may be increased if participation nears the cap in a given year or removed entirely if participation does not meet the cap for two consecutive years. The state provides formula-based funding for enrolled EFA students within these limits. Texas, in contrast, has not implemented any enrollment cap but instead appropriated an initial lump sum for the program to provide awards, thus placing a practical cap on participation.
Tennessee addresses cost concerns similarly to New Hampshire by placing a flexible enrollment cap of 20,000 students on its newly created Education Freedom Scholarship program. However, the state’s approach regarding equity concerns differs.
In Tennessee, for the 2025-26 school year:
- Half of all available scholarships are offered with universal eligibility and awarded according to a priority order.
- The remaining half are reserved for students whose annual household income fall below a certain threshold, who are zoned to attend certain Achievement School District schools or who have certain disabilities.
As universal school choice programs continue to expand, state policymakers must carefully weigh how design decisions shape both fiscal sustainability and students’ access to school choice. Program design will determine how these initiatives endure and who benefits from them.
