House Speaker Cameron Sexton is pushing to potentially double Tennessee’s Education Freedom Scholarship program and eliminate income limits for the state’s older voucher initiative in Davidson, Hamilton and Shelby counties.
The proposals would significantly expand taxpayer-funded private school access across Tennessee as demand continues to outpace available slots.
“We’ll see what the demand is come early next year,” Sexton said. “If it’s more than 20,000 again, we’ll try to increase the number of scholarships to meet the demand for the next academic year.”
The statewide Education Freedom Scholarship program currently provides 20,000 grants of $7,295 each for private school tuition. The state received more than 42,000 applications last year, with more than half submitted within hours of the application opening.
Sexton said lawmakers will consider expanding the program to as many as 40,000 scholarships to meet applicant demand. The 2025-26 application opens Dec. 9.
Under current law, the program can grow by 5,000 slots annually if all scholarships are awarded and lawmakers approve the expansion. Sexton’s proposal would accelerate that growth significantly.
Half of the current scholarships go to families without income restrictions, while the other half are reserved for families earning $173,000 or less for a household of four. Students must take one standardized test, but results are not reported to the state.
The program cost $447 million this year. Doubling enrollment would require at least $146 million more, excluding administrative expenses.
The funding increase comes as state agencies face budget pressures from federal cuts. The Department of Human Services alone has requested $97 million in additional funding to maintain the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which serves one in 10 Tennesseans.
Sexton also wants to remove the income cap from Tennessee’s three-county Education Savings Accounts program, which was designed in 2019 to help low-income families afford private education.
The program currently offers $9,800 scholarships to students in Davidson, Hamilton and Shelby counties who meet income limits. The 2025-26 limit is $81,120 for a family of four.
There are 4,794 students enrolled in the program, according to the Tennessee Department of Education. State law allows up to 15,000 participants, and no student has been denied due to capacity limits.
Students must be entering kindergarten or transferring from public to private school. Unlike the Freedom Scholarship program, participants must take the TCAP exam and scores are reported to the state.
Recent test data shows math proficiency improved among participants in 2024-25, but English scores declined.
Sexton said he would not change testing requirements for the savings accounts program but may support aligning application timelines for both programs to the end of the year. That would help families secure financial aid before committing to schools.
Gov. Bill Lee has also advocated for program expansion, saying “the only thing I’m not happy with is that we don’t have more scholarships to give to more income-limited, low-income families and to families that aren’t limited in their income.”
“I know people want to say it’s all about school choice, but it’s about education as a whole,” Sexton said. “It’s about competition, and it’s about finding the right fit for that child to go to school.”
