New ASU Report Highlights What Arizona's Universal ESA Voucher Program Means for Public Education
Independent research from Arizona State University raises new questions about who benefits from Arizona’s billion-dollar voucher program, and what it means for the 91% of students who attend public schools.
A newly released report from researchers at Arizona State University’s Children’s Equity Project examines the rapid expansion of education voucher programs across the country and takes a close look at Arizona.
The report, “The Data and Policy Landscape of Education Vouchers: Inequitable Opportunity and the Unprecedented Shift in Public Education Dollars,” explores how voucher programs expanded, who uses them, and how the diversion of our public education dollars affects the neighborhood public schools that continue to educate the overwhelming majority of children.
The report notes that while policymakers have rapidly expanded voucher programs, voters have repeatedly rejected pro-voucher measures in states across the political spectrum, including Arizona, Kentucky, Nebraska, and Utah. Despite these public votes, voucher expansion has continued at an unprecedented pace – and the findings for Arizona are particularly striking.
Arizona: The Nation's First Universal Voucher Program
In many states, including Arizona, voucher initiatives have been framed as efforts to expand educational opportunity for low-income families. However, voucher advocates have acknowledged that this approach is essentially just a pathway toward broader universal voucher programs, and there is little data to support this argument. In fact, recent data from Arizona and Texas suggest many of the families whose needs are used to justify expansion are “neither central to their design nor ultimately prioritized by them.” In Arizona, voucher participation in high-income areas is nearly three times higher than in low-income areas.
Arizona’s universal ESA voucher program launched in 2022 and has grown far beyond its original projections.
According to the report:
- The program is expected to cost roughly $1 billion annually.
- When lawmakers expanded the program, projected costs for FY2025 were about $125 million. Actual costs reached $886 million, roughly 7.6 times the original estimate.
- As of April 2026, more than 102,000 students participate in the ESA program.
“A Look at Arizona” (page 19)
Most Arizona students still attend public schools
One of the report’s central findings is easy to overlook:
More than 91% of students nationwide—and 90% of students in Arizona—continue to attend public schools.
Because public schools still educate nearly all children, policymakers must consider how expanding voucher programs affects funding for those schools. As the report authors state, “It is critical to recognize that 91% of students are still served in public school settings… This makes it critical to understand how the diversion of public resources… will impact funding for the public school settings that serve most of our children.”
According to the report:
“In Arizona, an ESA is generally funded by 90% of the otherwise publicly allocated state funding, but does not include federal or local dollars, redirecting state dollars that would have been allocated to the child had they attended public school to private school tuition or other educational costs. When a district loses enrollment due to vouchers, it does not receive the (voucher program specific) funding amount allocated to that child, must spend more per pupil on fixed costs, and limit funds spent on variable costs.
These funding shortfalls have wide ranging consequences. In the 2024-2025 school year, 31 states and D.C. reported more than 45,000 teaching vacancies… These vacancies may influence students’ learning experiences, potentially impacting class sizes and teacher-to-child ratios, which are critical to ensuring effective instruction and individualized support. Funding challenges can impact other school support roles, including school nurses, counselors, mental health specialists, and special educators – positions that help ensure children are safe, healthy, thriving and ready to learn. Other impacts of funding shortages include facilities in disrepair.
These vacancies may influence students’ learning experiences, potentially impacting class sizes and teacher-to-child ratios, which are critical to ensuring effective instruction and individualized support. Funding challenges can impact other school support roles, including school nurses, counselors, mental health specialists, and special educators – positions that help ensure children are safe, healthy, thriving and ready to learn. Other impacts of funding shortages include facilities in disrepair.”
Who is using Arizona's voucher program?
One of the biggest questions raised by the ASU report is “Who does Arizona’s universal ESA program actually help?”
The report uncovers a large disconnect between the data and the way voucher lobbyists present universal vouchers. Voucher programs are frequently promoted as a way to expand educational opportunities for low-income families and students who attend under-resourced schools. But the report finds that the families whose needs are used to justify voucher expansion are not the families benefiting most from the programs.
When Arizona’s universal ESA voucher program was first introduced in 2023, nearly 80% of children entering the program came from private schools or another non-public educational setting. While that percentage has declined as the program has expanded, the pattern has continued: in the most recent year of available data, nearly half of children newly enrolling in Arizona’s voucher system were already enrolled in private schools or another non-public setting.
The report also finds that 57% of Arizona’s voucher users live in moderate- to high-income ZIP codes and could likely afford private schooling without a voucher. The researchers caution that this means public dollars subsidize private-school tuition for families already enrolled in private schools, while the voucher remains insufficient to make those same schools accessible to lower-income families.
A voucher doesn’t necessarily make private school affordable
The problem is that the cost of attending private school does not end with tuition.
According to the report, the average private-school tuition in Arizona in 2026 was $11,434 for elementary schools and $15,442 for high schools. Meanwhile, more than three-quarters of ESA voucher awards were between $7,000 and $9,000. That leaves families facing a tuition gap of roughly $2,500 to $8,500, depending on the student’s grade level and voucher amount. That means this additional cost is simply out of reach for the vast majority of low- and middle-income families in Arizona.
And tuition is only part of the cost.
The report identifies additional expenses that families may encounter when choosing a private school, including application fees, registration fees, technology fees, activity fees, uniforms, transportation, entrance exams, and before- and after-school care. The report estimates these additional costs can total $3,275 to $8,425 per child.
The report illustrates this problem through the story of a family, Michele and Joe, who tryto enroll their two children in a private school. Even with a $10,000 voucher, their children’s $29,000 tuition leaves a $19,000 gap that the school agreed to cover through a scholarship. But scholarships are not guaranteed for every family.
Then come the additional costs: testing, transportation, after-school care, uniforms, enrollment fees, and other expenses. By the time everything is added up, the family’s first-year costs exceeded $10,000 beyond tuition. The report’s conclusion is striking: what is advertised as a “free” educational choice can still carry a substantial financial burden for families.
That is the central contradiction the ASU researchers identify. A voucher can be available to everyone on paper while remaining inaccessible to many families in practice.
The report warns that, if current trends continue, voucher policies will deepen economic segregation in education. Wealthier families receive public subsidies for private schools they could already afford, while lower- and middle-income families remain concentrated in in public schools that are left with fewer resources or fly-by-night strip-mall private schools that price their tuition at exactly the value of a voucher and offer an education of questionable quality.
In other words, the question is not simply whether Arizona families have a “choice.” The question is who can actually afford to use that choice, who is already positioned to benefit from it, and what happens to the public schools serving the children who remain.
Figure 4 (Gap Between Average Private School Tuition and Average Voucher Amount, page 15)
Arizona already ranks near the bottom in public school funding
The report also connects voucher expansion with Arizona’s long-running public school funding challenges.
Researchers note that:
- Arizona ranks near the bottom in per-pupil funding nationally.
- The Arizona Supreme Court ruled in 2026 that the state’s capital funding system created “substantial disparities” between school districts and that, overall, public schools were underfunded by at least $2.2 billion.
Why this matters
The report warns that continued diversion of public education dollars could increase inequities over time, and that voucher policies may increase income segregation, leave public schools with fewer resources, and widen disparities in educational opportunity if current trends continue.
While families deserve educational options, the report emphasizes that we must also consider the long-term health of the public school system that continues to educate the overwhelming majority of Arizona’s children.
Read the full report
The Data and Policy Landscape of Education Vouchers: Inequitable Opportunity and the Unprecedented Shift in Public Education Dollars
Children’s Equity Project at Arizona State University