In 2024-25, North Carolina’s largest voucher program, the Opportunity Scholarship voucher program became a universal program, which means that all income eligibility requirements were removed. The expansion shifts millions of dollars to the private sector and gives vouchers to anyone, even wealthy families—a far cry from the program that was sold as a way to give low-income students in low-performing schools access to private schools.
The requirement to have attended a public school before applying for a voucher has also been removed. Vouchers will siphon billions of dollars from public school funding over the coming years as money that could have been spent on the public schools that serve all students is sent to private schools. The facts are clear; precious dollars that should be going to support our underfunded public schools are subsidizing private school tuition, often for wealthy families that never intended to send their child to public school.
- The majority (55%) of new applicants for 2024-25 were from families too wealthy to have qualified in previous years.
- Lawmakers allocated more than $616 million to pay for vouchers in the 2024-25 school year.
- Over 87% of the new voucher recipients in 2024-25 had never attended a public school.
- Since vouchers were launched, more than $1.4 billion taxpayer dollars have already been spent on private school tuition vouchers.
- After income limits and prior public school enrollment requirements for voucher eligibility were lifted, spending on private school tuition more than doubled as wealthy families who were already sending their children to private school received vouchers.
- Over 86% of all voucher dollars went to religious private schools in 2024-25.
- By the 2034-35 school year, North Carolina is projected to spend nearly $1 BILLION every year on taxpayer-funded vouchers.
- Private schools have no public accountability for how voucher funds are spent or how well students meet academic standards.
- Only one private school staff person must pass a criminal background check for the school to be eligible to receive vouchers. This is unsafe for students!
