By Kathryn Hickok
New Hampshire has removed the income cap for families applying to its Education Freedom Account program, making it the first state in New England to offer school choice to all K-12 children. Governor Kelly Ayotte signed the program expansion into law on June 10. Previously, first-time applicants had to have incomes below 350% of the federal poverty level to qualify.
Total program enrollment will be limited to 10,000 students in the first year of the program’s expansion. If more students apply than there are spaces available, the program will prioritize current participants and their siblings, students with special needs, and low-income students.
New Hampshire’s four-year-old EFA program is one of the most family-empowering school choice laws in the country. EFAs can be used for a wide variety of approved education expenses. Each child’s EFA is funded by the state’s “per-pupil adequate education grant amount,” plus any additional aid that would have been allocated in a public school (for example, if the student qualified for free- or reduced-price lunch or special-needs funding or was an English-language learner). The state contracts with the nonprofit Children’s Scholarship Fund New Hampshire to administer the program.
New Hampshire follows Tennessee, Idaho, Wyoming, and Texas in expanding educational opportunities available to their children this year. It’s time Oregon gave the same chances to students here, too.
Kathryn Hickok is Executive Vice President at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy research organization, and Director of Cascade’s Children’sScholarship Fund-Oregon program.
