Funded Eligibility Rankings 

As we close the book on 2025, just under half of K-12 students across the country, roughly 27 million, are eligible for a private school choice program. Amazingly, there are 23 school choice programs across 19 states offering eligibility to all students in the state. Many of these programs are education savings accounts, which are multi-use and flexible for families. 

ESAs with universal eligibility have come a long way in a short period of time. Just 5 years ago there were two (!) programs offering universal eligibility. At that same time, roughly one-fourth of students (about 13 million) were eligible to participate in a private school choice program. School choice programs featuring universal eligibility have quickly transitioned from outliers to the status quo for states across the country.  

But, as physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer famously observed, “theory will take you only so far.” Likewise, universal eligibility is only one step toward delivering true educational freedom for families nationwide. Any school choice bill that boasts universal eligibility must also ensure full funding. Fully funded eligibility simply means that every student in a state with a choice program not only qualifies for the program but also receives the resources necessary to participate. 

We’ve witnessed what happens in states that grant universal eligibility but do not follow through with fully funded eligibility. Take Utah’s ESA program, for example. In the program’s inaugural year (2024), more than 27,000 students applied to participate. However, due to lack of funds available, only 10,000 were awarded scholarships. The rest of the students were placed on a waitlist.  

A similar situation unfolded in North Carolina with their Opportunity Scholarship program. Last summer, roughly 55,000 NC families were waitlisted despite being eligible to participate in the program.   

Demand for choice programs, and not just in Utah or North Carolina, has proven to be quite strong. States with programs that have universal eligibility but that lack fully funded eligibility run the risk of shutting the door to thousands of eager families. This is a problem in several other states too, unfortunately.  

Texas is the latest example. While Texas made a major splash in 2025, enacting an ESA program with universal eligibility, their program is quite limited in terms of funded eligibility. While the program is estimated to serve roughly 90,000 students in its first year, immediately making Texas one of the largest choice states in terms of raw student participation, it will only be accessible to roughly 1% of the student population. This is the fundamental difference between states without fully funded eligibility (Utah, North Carolina, Texas) and states with fully funded eligibility (Arizona, Florida, Arkansas, etc.).  

Our rankings below provide a better understanding of the current landscape of funded eligibility. To calculate funded eligibility rates, we divided the number of students each program in each state can fund by the total number of students in the state. States are then organized from highest to lowest eligibility rates, with the total number of students funded serving as the tiebreaker.  

Additionally, the newly released 2026 ABCs of School Choice provides more information about each school choice program across the country. It also contains helpful data, including budget caps, participation counts, as well as historical data on the programs when applicable.