STATES
Eighteen states.
Twenty-four programs.
Every one of them, by name.
An education savings account program puts money into an account a parent controls. Eighteen states run one. This is where they are, what they are called, who qualifies, and where the money comes from.
What counts as one of these programs.
A count only means something next to the definition behind it, so here is the one this page uses.
A program is on this list if all of the following are true. Money is held in an account for a named student and the parent directs it. The account pays for more than one kind of expense. It is run by a state agency, or by a private organization under state contract or statutory authority. And it is making a new award for the 2026-27 school year.
That last condition does real work. Two accounts that exist in law are not on the list because neither is making a new award this year, and a company deciding where to put its effort wants programs that are growing. Both are named further down.
That test puts twenty-four programs in eighteen states.
Notice what the test does not ask: where the money came from before it reached the account. Four of the twenty-four are funded by donations that earn the donor a state tax credit rather than by an appropriation: the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, the Personalized Education Program that runs under it, Missouri MOScholars, and Utah Carson Smith Opportunity. A family spends them the same way. A company registers with the same administrator and is paid through the same platform. So they are counted.
The test does do work at the edges. A voucher pays tuition at a school: one category of expense, and the family's choice is which school. Most tax credit scholarships work the same way, which is why there are dozens of them and only four here. Neither is on this list.
Trackers count this differently. EdChoice lists twenty-one programs in eighteen states, counting by where the money comes from, and keeps a separate tax credit category. Its twenty-one are these twenty-four, minus the four above, plus Montana, which it still counts.
Its separate category is not those same four, which is worth saying because the two lists look like they should line up and do not. EdChoice's tax credit page states in words that there are three such programs, in Florida, Missouri, and Utah, and then displays four, the fourth being New Hampshire's Education Tax Credit, a program this page does not count at all because its statute creates no individual account. Florida's Personalized Education Program is not listed there separately. So the counts reconcile and the categories do not.
One more choice sits underneath the number, and this page makes it rather than leaving it implicit. Florida's Personalized Education Program runs under the Florida Tax Credit statute, and it has its own handbook, its own eligibility, and its own application. Counted by statute it is part of one program. Counted by handbook it is a program of its own. This page counts by handbook, because the handbook governs what a family may buy and what a provider has to do, and that is the thing this page is for. Counting Florida by statute instead would give twenty-three.
Where the money comes from.
Five shapes, and the shape tells you what caps the program.
Seventeen of the twenty-four are funded by a state appropriation. The money is a budget line a legislature sets, and what the program can pay out in a year is whatever that line holds.
Tennessee's Education Savings Account pilot and its Individualized Education Account program draw state and local dollars through TISA, the state's school funding formula, so the award moves when the formula's base amount moves.
Alabama's CHOOSE Act is a refundable state income tax credit deposited into the account. It is state money going to the family rather than a donation, and the statute fixes the amount.
Mississippi's award is calculated each spring against the Mississippi Student Funding Formula and depends on what has been appropriated, which is why eligible applicants are waitlisted when the money runs out.
Four draw on donations that earn the donor a state tax credit: the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship and its Personalized Education Program, Missouri MOScholars, and Utah Carson Smith Opportunity. What caps a donation stream is not a budget line but what gets raised in a year, which makes the volume harder to predict even though the account works the same way.
Two of those four are not purely donation funded. Utah's Carson Smith Opportunity names three sources, including an appropriation from the state. Missouri's records describe a credit mechanism while a court order records a general revenue appropriation into the same fund. Both entries say so.
An appropriation can be spent out. A formula-linked award changes when the formula changes. A credit drawn against tax revenue has a statutory ceiling instead of an appropriation. None of that changes what the account buys. All of it changes how much is there to buy with.
Each entry gives the program's official name, who qualifies, where the money comes from, and the current award if the state publishes one.
Alabama
CHOOSE Act. For 2026-27, for a student whose family adjusted gross income does not exceed 300 percent of the federal poverty level for the preceding tax year. Awards are made in a statutory priority order: the first 500 to students with special needs, then students awarded in the prior year, then dependents of active duty service members enrolled in or assigned to a priority school, then by family income as a percentage of the federal poverty level, with preference for siblings of participating students. The benefit is a refundable Alabama income tax credit, paid from the CHOOSE Act Fund and deposited into the account.
$7,000 a year for a student enrolled at a participating school, and $2,000 for a student in a home education program, capped at $4,000 across all home education students in one family. The amounts are fixed in statute rather than indexed, so they do not move year to year.
Arizona
Empowerment Scholarship Accounts. Open to K-12 students, with larger awards tied to disability category. State funded through the school finance formula: the award is calculated from the state support the student would otherwise have generated at a district or charter school, with separate appropriations for administering the program.
Arizona publishes no award table for 2026-27. Its Department of Education's quarterly report to the legislature gives the distribution for the fourth quarter of 2025-26 instead: of 99,709 awards, 74,509 fell between $7,000 and $8,999, and 11,194 were $30,000 or more.
EdChoice, which publishes an average account value rather than an award, puts it at $9,572 for 2024-25, with participation at 96,802 for 2025-26.
Arkansas
Education Freedom Account, created by the LEARNS Act. Open to K-12 students. Funded by a state appropriation, set by rule at ninety percent of the prior year's statewide foundation funding per student.
Arkansas publishes no award amount for 2026-27. It publishes three different figures for 2025-26, on different bases rather than in contradiction: the Department's information page for families says $6,864 and labels it the net amount to the student after transaction fees, its 2024-25 annual report says $6,994, and its 2025-26 family handbook says approximately $6,800. The same page gives $7,627 for a former Succeed Scholarship student, also 2025-26 and also net. A figure of $7,208 circulates for this year. It appears in a news story and in no Arkansas source.
EdChoice puts the average account value at $6,694, with participation at 46,578 for 2025-26. That is a fourth number, and it agrees with none of the Department's three.
Florida
Florida runs four of these programs. All four are administered by nonprofit scholarship funding organizations under Florida statute, and all four draw on one published award table. Two are funded through the Florida Education Finance Program, the state's school funding formula. Two are funded by donations that earn the donor a state tax credit.
Family Empowerment Scholarship, Educational Options. Based on household income, reaching a broad share of students. $7,463 to $12,217 for 2026-27, varying by county and grade band across all 67 districts.
Family Empowerment Scholarship, Unique Abilities. For students with an identified disability. $9,627 to $39,091 for 2026-27. The range runs across five matrix levels as well as county and grade band: matrix level 4 runs $21,379 to $25,701, and matrix level 5 runs $34,429 to $39,091.
Florida Tax Credit Scholarship. Funded by donations against a state tax credit. $7,463 to $12,217 for 2026-27, from the same table as Educational Options.
Personalized Education Program. Runs under the Florida Tax Credit statute, with its own handbook revised September 16, 2026 and its own eligibility, and funded the same way. $7,463 to $12,217 for 2026-27, again from the same table.
Georgia
Georgia Promise Scholarship. Eligibility generally requires Georgia residency, qualifying prior attendance at a public school or entry into kindergarten, residence in the attendance zone of a school on the statutory lowest performing list, and household income at or below 400 percent of the federal poverty level, with a statutory exception when appropriated funds exceed what is needed for everyone otherwise eligible at or below that threshold. Funded by a state appropriation.
Up to $6,500 a year, paid in four installments, with up to five percent of the account deducted to administer the program. The statute fixed $6,500 for the program's first year and ties each later year to the change in the QBE base amount. Georgia has not closed the gap between its own documents on this year's figure: the current family handbook says the 2026-27 amount will be shared once it is finalized, while the program's site and its platform both state $6,500.
Indiana
Education Scholarship Account. For students with a disability, subject to household income, and for their siblings at a lower amount. Funded by a state appropriation.
$6,033.32 to $8,328.56 for 2026-27, varying by the school corporation where the student has legal settlement, from Cloverdale Community Schools at the bottom to Gary Community School Corporation at the top. The Department of Education labels that table an estimate. The base is ninety percent of the per-student state funding the corporation would have received, and a student with a disability also draws the special education funding that would have gone to the public or charter school, which the Department publishes in a separate table by disability level. Its FAQ states a maximum of up to $20,000 for a student with a disability, and a separate cap of up to $8,000 for a sibling, which is a program cap rather than a figure from the award table.
Iowa
Students First Education Savings Account. For students enrolled in an accredited nonpublic school. Funded by a state appropriation.
$8,148 for 2026-27, equal to the regular program state cost per pupil, with half released on July 15, 2026 and half on December 1, 2026. HF 2754 added a second application window, October 15 to November 15, and sets the award for a student entering through it at fifty percent of the annual amount. The Department of Education has not published a dollar figure for that variant.
Louisiana
LA GATOR Scholarship. Open to K-12 students, with a higher award below 250 percent of the federal poverty level and a tiered addition for a student with an IDEA disability. Funded by a state appropriation, calculated as a percentage of the prior year's minimum foundation program amount per student.
Louisiana publishes no table for 2026-27. The figures on the Department of Education's page are labeled 2025-26: $5,243 as the base, $7,626 at or below 250 percent of the federal poverty level, and up to $15,253 with an IDEA disability. The program manager stated in July 2026 that the amounts are unchanged for 2026-27. The 2026-27 disability tier chart is published as an image.
Mississippi
Education Scholarship Account. The Equal Opportunity for Students with Special Needs Act of 2015 created it, and that Act's name is often used as the program's; the Department of Education calls the program the Education Scholarship Account. Indiana runs a program of the same name.
For a student with an active Individualized Education Program written by a public school district where the student was enrolled, within three years of application, who has been accepted at an eligible school. An eligible school is a state-accredited special purpose school, a state-accredited nonpublic school, or an in-state nonpublic school serving the student's disability or IEP. A home instruction program is not an eligible school, and reimbursement for tutoring and for educational services both require that the student is not home schooled. Funded by annual legislative appropriation.
$8,421.00 is the maximum reimbursement for 2026-27. The Department calculates the amount each spring and states that it may vary with the funds available. Eligible applicants are waitlisted when the money runs out and awarded in order as it frees up.
Mississippi pays on reimbursement rather than into a spendable balance. The parent submits an itemized request each quarter and the Department pays the parent, or an educational service provider if the parent approves it. No lump sums. The 2026-27 calendar runs requests due August 31 and November 27, 2026 and February 26 and May 31, 2027, with disbursements on September 29 and December 17, 2026 and March 30 and June 29, 2027.
Missouri
MOScholars, the Missouri Empowerment Scholarship Accounts Program. Run by the State Treasurer. For a Missouri resident with an approved Individualized Education Program, or from a household up to 300 percent of the free and reduced lunch threshold; an applicant qualifying on income must also have attended a public school full time for at least a semester recently, be entering kindergarten or first grade, or be the sibling of a current recipient.
Missouri publishes no dollar figure. The statute sets the award as a percentage of the state adequacy target: not more than 100 percent generally, 125 percent for a student eligible for free or reduced price lunch, 160 percent for a student with limited English proficiency, and 175 percent for a student with a current Individualized Education Program. This year's state adequacy target is not published, so none of those percentages resolves to an amount.
EdChoice puts the average account value at $6,375, with participation at 2,700.
How the program is funded may be two things at once. The statute creates a tax credit for contributions to approved educational assistance organizations, and the Treasurer's page describes the program only that way, with no mention of an appropriation. An order of the Cole County Circuit Court in MNEA v. State, No. 25AC-CC05358, records a $50 million general revenue appropriation into the same fund, and EdChoice lists the funding mechanism as an appropriation. Those are not mutually exclusive: a program built on donor credits can also receive an appropriation. Missouri publishes nothing that says whether it draws on both.
New Hampshire
Education Freedom Account. Open to K-12 students. Funded from the state education trust fund and administered by the Children's Scholarship Fund New Hampshire under statute.
New Hampshire publishes the award as a formula rather than a figure: the state adequacy base amount per pupil, plus differentiated aid for a student who qualifies for it. The Department of Education's rate table did not return, so no state-published dollar amount for 2026-27 appears here. The administrator describes the 2025-26 base as approximately $4,000, each differentiated aid factor as an estimated $700 to $2,000, and the average grant for 2025-26 as $4,800.
North Carolina
Education Student Accounts, known as ESA+. For students with a disability. Funded by a state appropriation and administered by the State Education Assistance Authority.
$9,000 a year, and $17,000 for a student with autism, a hearing impairment, a moderate or severe intellectual disability, an orthopedic impairment, or a visual impairment. The statute sets those as maximums and the Authority states them as the annual award. Part time students are capped at $4,500 and $8,500 by the same section. Neither source carries a year label.
South Carolina
Education Scholarship Trust Fund. Based on household income. Funded by a state appropriation.
$7,634 for 2026-27, in four deposits due by July 31, 2026, September 30, 2026, December 31, 2026 and February 28, 2027. The statute raises the prior year's amount by the increase in average per-pupil state funding unless the appropriations act says otherwise, and the input for this year is not published. A further amount of up to five percent is transferred to the Department of Education for oversight, administration, and the trustee fee. The participant guide does not say whether that comes out of the $7,634.
Tennessee
Tennessee runs three.
Education Freedom Scholarship. Open to K-12 students, with a statewide cap on enrollment. Funded by a state appropriation. $7,530 for 2026-27, equal to the TISA base funding amount per student, which changes with the formula each year.
Education Savings Account pilot. For students below an income threshold who are zoned to schools in specified districts. Funded by state and local dollars through TISA. For 2026-27: $10,093.89 in Hamilton County Schools, and $10,132.54 in both Metro Nashville Public Schools and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.
Individualized Education Account. For students with a disability. Funded by state dollars through TISA. Tennessee publishes no amount for 2026-27. The award is the TISA base allocation plus the average special education funding generated by students with disabilities in the student's own district, recalculated each quarter against where the student lives, and the per-district inputs are not published. EdChoice puts the average account value at $12,788 for 2025-26, with participation at 981.
Texas
Education Freedom Accounts. Open to K-12 students. Funded by a state appropriation, calculated as eighty five percent of the estimated statewide average state and local funding per student in average daily attendance.
$10,474 for 2026-27 for a student at a private school or in a pre-kindergarten or kindergarten program. A student with a current IEP receives that base plus a special education amount set by district and by instructional arrangement code, capped by statute at $30,000 in total. A student in home education receives $2,000, paid in one installment. An award confirmed off the waitlist after September 15 is prorated to seventy five percent, and after January 15 to fifty percent.
Utah
Utah runs two.
Utah Fits All Scholarship. Open to K-12 students. Funded by a state appropriation and administered by a program manager under contract to the State Board of Education.
$8,000 a year for a student at a private school, $4,000 for a home-based student aged 5 to 11 on September 1, and $6,000 for a home-based student aged 12 to 18. The statute sets those as annual maximums and makes them subject to appropriation. An award made in the second quarter is capped at seventy five percent of the annual amount and in the third quarter at fifty percent, and no new awards are made in the fourth.
Carson Smith Opportunity Scholarship. For a student with an IDEA qualifying disability documented by an Individual Education Plan, an Assessment Team Member Record, or a Multidisciplinary Team evaluation, verified within the prior 36 months. A Section 504 plan is not one of the qualifying routes. Run by the Children First Education Fund under an agreement with the State Board of Education, which operates in no other state.
Funded three ways, by the administrator's own account: donations from individuals and businesses carrying a 100 percent Utah income tax credit, an appropriation from the state of Utah, and transfers of funds not used by the legacy Carson Smith program.
$12,175 for a K-12 student at a private school for 2026-27, $4,800 for full time preschool and $2,600 for part time. The homeschool amount is published two ways by the same organization: its award amounts page and its FAQ give a single $8,000, and its application guide gives $6,000 for K-6 and $8,000 for 7-12. This is the program EdChoice leaves out of its twenty-one.
West Virginia
Hope Scholarship. Open to K-12 students, with eligibility extended for a student with a disability. Funded by a state appropriation.
$5,435.62 for 2026-27, set at one hundred percent of the prior year's statewide average net state aid per pupil, paid in four installments. The award is prorated by application date: an application filed from June 16 to September 15, 2026 draws seventy five percent, from September 16 to November 30, 2026 fifty percent, and from December 1, 2026 to February 28, 2027 twenty five percent. The Hope Scholarship Board may retain up to five percent to administer the program.
Wyoming
Education Savings Account Program, created by the Steamboat Legacy Scholarship Act. Open to K-12 students, and to a four year old in a pre-kindergarten program whose household is at or below 250 percent of the federal poverty level. Funded by a state appropriation.
$7,000 a year, fixed in statute, paid in four equal quarterly payments. The first quarter for 2026-27 was paid in early September 2026 rather than on July 1, following the court ruling that let the program reopen. A student continuing from 2025-26 who was not in a public school that year carries the fourth quarter of the prior year's award into this one.
Where there is no number, that is the finding.
Eleven of the eighteen publish a current award amount for 2026-27: Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Three publish one their own documents qualify. Indiana labels its table an estimate. Georgia's family handbook says this year's amount will be shared once it is finalized while its program site states $6,500. Louisiana's figures are still labeled 2025-26 on the state's own page.
Four publish none. Arizona has no 2026-27 table. Arkansas has no figure for this year. Missouri publishes its award as a percentage of a state adequacy target it does not publish. New Hampshire publishes a formula, and its rate table did not return.
Within Tennessee, two of the three programs publish an amount and the Individualized Education Account does not. Within Florida, all four draw on one published table.
Where a state publishes nothing, the figure quoted above it comes from EdChoice, and it is a different kind of fact: an average of what accounts actually held, not what an award pays. Every page in EdChoice's education savings account set carries one date, December 16, 2025, whatever year the individual figures are labeled. That applies to Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee's Individualized Education Account.
Four things recur as gaps: how many providers are approved, what a program actually spent against its appropriation, how long a payment takes from submission to deposit, and what the money was spent on by category. No state in this review published all four, and most published none, though that is what this review found rather than the result of a systematic audit of every program.
Provider counts are published in places and are easy to misread. EdChoice gives a figure it labels providers or schools for three programs: Arkansas 166, South Carolina 541, and Tennessee's Individualized Education Account 53. Arkansas's own annual report separates 166 participating private schools from 2,132 service providers, so the two are not the same count.
Where a state's own documents disagree.
Arkansas states three different amounts for 2025-26 across three of its own documents: $6,864, $6,994, and approximately $6,800.
Indiana's FAQ caps a sibling's award at up to $8,000, which is below the $8,328.56 top of the Department's own award table.
New Hampshire's eligibility is sometimes still described as capped at 350 percent of the federal poverty level. It is not. RSA 194-F:1 defines an eligible student as a resident of the state who is eligible to enroll in a public elementary or secondary school, with no income test, and puts the 350 percent figure in the priority guidelines instead. The source note records the amendment at 2025, 75:1, 2, effective June 10, 2025. State materials written before that date may still show the old rule.
Louisiana's FAQ describes the top disability tier as 145 percent of the base award. 145 percent of the published $5,243 base is $7,602.35, and the published tier is $7,627. The displayed base is rounded and the formula may run on unrounded inputs, so this is a mismatch between what is published and what the published figures reproduce, rather than a demonstrated error in the calculation.
Florida's two scholarship funding organizations publish the same 2026-27 figures under opposite grade band headings, so one dollar amount is labeled K-3 on one table and 4-8 on the other. Both tables are linked here so the swap can be checked side by side.
Arizona's statute sets the award against what the student would have generated at a charter school. Its parent handbook describes it as what the state would have spent had the student attended the local public school.
Florida's statute puts the Unique Abilities enrollment cap at 72,615 for 2024-25, rising each year by five percent of exceptional student education full-time enrollment. The Department's FAQ says approximately 70,000 and three percent.
Georgia's family handbook and its program site disagree on whether this year's amount is final.
Utah's Children First Education Fund publishes the Carson Smith Opportunity homeschool amount two ways. Its award amounts page and its FAQ give a single $8,000. Its application guide gives $6,000 for K-6 and $8,000 for 7-12.
Missouri's Treasurer describes MOScholars as funded by contributions earning a state tax credit and does not mention an appropriation. The Cole County Circuit Court order in MNEA v. State records a $50 million general revenue appropriation into the same fund. Both can be true at once, and nothing Missouri publishes says whether they are.
Two accounts that exist and are not growing.
Both of these are real accounts a parent directs, and neither is making a new award for 2026-27. A company choosing where to put its effort wants the programs that are growing, so they are not in the twenty-four. They are here because the question comes up.
Montana, Special Needs Equal Opportunity Education Savings Account. For students with a disability, funded by a remittance from the school district's general fund. The Office of Public Instruction publishes no amount for 2026-27 and links only the 2025-26 table, which ran $5,186.06 to $8,584.79 by budget unit with ninety five percent deposited into the account. No 2026-27 application window has been published. The court stay that allowed the program to operate covered the 2025-26 fiscal year, and appeal DA 26-0179 is pending. EdChoice shows 75 participating students and a $6,602 average, both 2025-26. EdChoice still counts this program among its twenty-one.
Florida, New Worlds Scholarship Accounts. $1,200 a student, for tutoring, summer and after school programs built to improve reading or math, and instructional materials including computers, tablets, and curriculum. Step Up For Students states that for lack of new funding it is not accepting applications. Families with existing accounts may still spend their balances through the Education Market Assistant, and an account that shows no spending activity between July 1, 2026 and June 30, 2027 is closed and the money returns to the state. So it is a market this year with a deadline on it, and not one to build a footprint on.
Seven programs people ask about.
Each of these comes up as an education savings account. None of them meets the test.
Nebraska. An education savings account program appeared in LB 1071 as introduced and in amendment AM2162. It is absent from the bill the Governor signed on April 7, 2026. Reporting from the Legislature puts its removal at second round reading in March 2026; the bill's own action history is the record for the exact stage. There is no Nebraska program.
The federal scholarship tax credit. Section 25F of the Internal Revenue Code, created by Section 70411 of Public Law 119-21, gives a taxpayer a credit for donating to a scholarship granting organization. It is not here because the federal statute creates no account for the student: it funds scholarship granting organizations through donor credits. The credit applies to taxable years ending after December 31, 2026, and calendar 2027 overlaps the back half of this school year, so the reason it is off this list is structural rather than a matter of timing. Thirty states have made an advance election to participate for 2027, on a list the IRS states is current as of September 14, 2026.
Oklahoma, Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship. The state issues a warrant that the parent endorses over to the private school. There is no account the parent directs, and no second category of expense.
Texas, Parent-Directed Special Education Services. A one-time grant of $1,500, set by rule, held in an online account a parent spends on approved goods and services for a student who stays enrolled in a public school. It meets more of the test than the rest of this list: it is parent directed and it covers more than one category. It is off the list because the grant is one time rather than a new award each year, which is the fourth condition.
Alaska, correspondence study allotments. A school district sets the allotment and approves each purchase, so the parent does not direct the account, and there is no statewide amount. One district publishes $2,600 for a full time K-12 student for 2026-27.
California, nonclassroom-based charter instructional funds. Funding goes to the charter school under its average daily attendance, and no statute creates an account for the student.
New Hampshire, Education Tax Credit Scholarship. A scholarship funded by donor credits, with no account language in the statute. RSA 77-G:2 I(b) sets $2,500 as the base cap on the average scholarship a scholarship organization may award and indexes it, so the figure in force for a given year is the adjusted one the Department of Revenue publishes rather than $2,500 flat.
How this page is kept.
Every figure on this page names the document it came from and the date it was read. A figure changes here when the state publishes a new one.
