New Hampshire – Town Tuitioning Program
New Hampshire’s Town Tuitioning Program, enacted and launched in 2017, allows towns without district schools at a student’s grade level to use public dollars for students to attend any public or approved private, non-religious school in or outside of New Hampshire. The “tuitioning” district pays the tuition directly to the “receiving” schools. Learn more about this program, including student funding, regulations and more, on this page.
Program Details
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Students in towns without public schools at their grade level may receive a voucher from the school district in which they reside to attend a public or private, non-religious school in or outside of New Hampshire.
Student Funding
When students are tuitioned at public schools, the sending town pays the receiving school district or private school an amount equal to the receiving school’s expenses of operation, as estimated by the state board of education the preceding year. That figure is calculated separately for elementary, junior high and high schools. Operation costs do not include the transportation of “tuitioning” students.
Student Eligibility
Students must live in New Hampshire and reside in an identified tuition town. A “tuition town” lacks a district school that offers the grade levels students need.
EdChoice Expert Feedback
New Hampshire’s town tuitioning program is very restrictive on eligibility for both students and schools. Like the nation’s oldest school choice program in Vermont, students qualify only if their home district does not have a public school for that student’s grade level. The provision barring religious schools from participating in the program limits the amount of choices town tuitioning students actually have. Moreover, the program does not provide transportation funding for tuitioning students. For receiving schools, required administration of a nationally norm-referenced assessment of their choice appropriately balances accountability and autonomy.
Rules and Regulations
- Income Limit: None
- Prior Year Public School Requirement: None
- Geographic Limit: District (without a public school at a student’s grade level)
- Enrollment Cap: None
- Voucher Cap: 100% of the public school per-pupil funding
- Testing Mandates: Nationally recognized standardized assessment
School Requirements
- Must be non-sectarian
- Receiving schools must report student performance progress to the state
- Administer a nationally recognized standardized assessment
- Schools with 10 or more tuitioning students that score in the 40th percentile or below for three consecutive years may lose receiving status
- Districts must report the tuition and fees paid for town tuitioning
Governing Statutes
Legal History
No legal challenges have been filed against the program.