Most NC private school students now get a taxpayer-funded voucher to pay costs
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- 74.2% of private school students received Opportunity Scholarships in 2025-26.
- Funding rose from $185.6M in 2023-24 to $589M in 2025-26.
- Voucher enrollment tripled from 32,549 to 106,863 after the expansion.
Nearly three-quarters of North Carolina’s private school students are now getting a taxpayer-funded voucher to help pay for their tuition costs, according to an analysis of state data.
The data indicates that 74.2% of North Carolina’s 143,998 private school students received an Opportunity Scholarship during the 2025-26 school year. Only a quarter of the state’s private school students were receiving a voucher two years ago, before the program was sharply expanded by state lawmakers.
“It is discouraging to see the continued growth in the unaccountable private school sector, where tax dollars fund schools that discriminate, lack transparency, are not required to publicly reveal student achievement data, and in some cases, limit admission to church members,” Heather Koons, director of research and communications for Public Schools First NC, said in an interview Wednesday.
But school choice advocates say the continued growth in the Opportunity Scholarship program should be hailed as a win for families.
“That’s a good thing that students can be in an environment that’s the best environment for them, and in a place where parents know that it will reflect their values, and that the children will be learning,” Bob Luebke, director of the John Locke Foundation’s Center for Effective Education, said in an interview Wednesday.
Voucher recipients triple in two years
The state has been giving Opportunity Scholarships to help families cover private school costs since 2014. The program was initially promoted by Republican lawmakers as a way to help low-income families pay for private schools to escape low-performing public schools.
But starting in the 2024-25 school year, lawmakers significantly expanded the Opportunity Scholarship program by increasing funding and opening eligibility to all families. The voucher program has tripled in size from 32,549 students in the 2023-24 school year to 106,863 students as of June 2026.
Most of the expansion has come from existing private school families applying for a voucher for the first time. Many private schools encouraged or in some cases required families to apply for an Opportunity Scholarship.
The voucher expansion has allowed some private schools to raise tuition, reduce the amount they spend on financial assistance and embark on expansion programs.
For next school year, Opportunity Scholarship recipients will receive between $3,574 and $7,942 per child depending on their family income.
Families earning the lowest incomes still account for the majority of the voucher recipients and funding. Families who would have made too much money to previously qualify for a voucher accounted for 45% of the recipients and 34% of the funding.
The voucher program has expanded so much that Republican State Auditor Dave Boliek is auditing the Opportunity Scholarship program.
Voucher funding increasing
The amount awarded for vouchers has tripled from $185.6 million in the 2023-24 school year to $589 million for the 2025-26 school year.
The newly adopted state budget continues the pledge lawmakers have made to raise funding for the Opportunity Scholarship program to $825 million a year by 2032.
Luebke said it’s a good thing for taxpayers that they’re paying for students to attend private schools instead of public schools.
“If they weren’t in private schools, they’d be paying for the education in a public school, which is about $13,100 right now per student,” Luebke said. “But the state is actually saving money by using the scholarship, and having a student enroll in a private school.”
Luebke pointed to how lawmakers reinvested the $35.8 million difference between what the state spent on vouchers versus what it would have provided in state funding for 12,252 former public school students. The $35.8 million went to bonuses for school cafeteria workers and custodians, training for middle school teachers and development of a new K-8 math curriculum.
But Koons said that $35.8 million is a “small drop” of what public schools should be getting. Koons said private schools are getting hundreds of millions a dollar a year in voucher funding that should be going to public schools.
“Any student that was already in private school and became eligible because of the universal vouchers, that funding should go to public schools,” Koons said. “That was a new line item in the budget that again is a private use of public funds and is inappropriate given the lack of transparency and accountability.”
This story was originally published July 9, 2026 at 11:52 AM with the headline "Most NC private school students now get a taxpayer-funded voucher to pay costs."
