Frequently Searched

Academic Transparency

Civil Forfeiture

Critical Race Theory

Right to Try

School Choice

What Are Empowerment Scholarship Accounts?

September 23, 2024
by Goldwater Institute

 

An Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) is a free program that gives every parent in Arizona the power to get their child into a school that fits.

ESAs allow parents to use a portion of their children’s allotted state funding to purchase books, school supplies, and other curriculum materials that they can use to educate their children. The typical award is about $7,400. Under the law, parents can then submit their expenses to the state for reimbursement.

Who Uses ESAs?

Today, ESAs serve over 75,000 students, including more than 24,000 children who had been trapped in an unsatisfactory public school until they became eligible for financial support through an ESA and switched.

  • 1 out of every 2 students now joining the ESA program comes from public school.
  • ESAs serve a far higher percentage of students with disabilities (18%) than public schools do (14%).
  • ESAs serve over 1,000 children whose parents are on active military duty or were killed in the line of duty.
  • ESAs serve families from all across the economic spectrum. Roughly half of Arizona private school students come from families with incomes below $100,000, including 22% who make less than $50,000 a year.

ESAs Save Taxpayers Money

The typical universal ESA award ($7,400) costs taxpayers thousands of dollars less than Arizona’s public school system, which averages $14,500 per pupil as of 2023-2024.

The typical ESA award costs the state less money than public schools (even excluding federal and local taxes).

In the two years since Arizona’s universal ESA expansion took effect, the state budget enjoyed a $2 billion surplus the first year, and an overall $4 million net savings in its education funding formula (including the cost of ESAs) compared to the enacted budget the second.

Read More about ESAs

You can learn more and download our ESA fact sheet here.

 

 

More on this issue

Donate Now

Help all Americans live freer, happier lives. Join the Goldwater Institute as we defend and strengthen freedom in all 50 states.

Donate Now

Since 1988, the Goldwater Institute has been in the liberty business — defending and promoting freedom, and achieving more than 400 victories in all 50 states. Donate today to help support our mission.

We Protect Your Rights

Our attorneys defend individual rights and protect those who cannot protect themselves.

Need Help? Submit a case.
Join our pro-bono attorney network.

Get Connected to Goldwater

Sign up for the latest news, event updates, and more.

Wait! Don’t close this yet!

We are grateful for your support of the Goldwater Institute’s efforts to advance and defend liberty throughout the United States. For over 36 years, we’ve been defending the rights of Americans to live their lives free from government interference.

And Goldwater is unique in that we direct our efforts to the 50 states where we introduce and advance innovative ideas that expand freedom. And we fight in courtrooms and capitals nationwide to defend individual liberty.

In 2024 alone, we scored over 50 policy and litigation victories defending liberty!

And that’s just the beginning.

Our plans for 2025 include:

  • Stopping pernicious DEI and other woke programs in America’s universities.
  • Ensuring that patients suffering from rare and terminal diseases have access to cutting-edge, lifesaving medical treatments, without having to first seek permission from the government.
  • Defending parental rights across the United States so that parents can send their kids to the school that best fits their needs, free from leftist indoctrination.
  • Eliminating government interference in the fundamental right of individuals to own property and use it as they see fit.
  • And much, much more

We seek to restore the presumption of liberty; that people are free to act without first asking permission from the government.

But we cannot do this without you. Will you join us as we fight to preserve and advance liberty throughout the country? As we seek new and innovative ways to defend freedom in all 50 states?

And there’s great news: Thanks to a generous Goldwater supporter, your donation today will be doubled!

So please, join us in fighting to advance liberty and score real wins for freedom from coast to coast!

Donate Now