From left: Arkansas Department of Education Secretary Jacob Oliva, Chief of Staff Courtney Salas-Ford and Chief Fiscal Officer Greg Rogers answer questions from the Arkansas Legislative Council about funding for the Education Freedom Account school voucher program on Friday, June 20, 2025. (Screenshot/Arkansas Legislature)
Arkansas lawmakers on Friday approved the release of an additional $90 million for the state’s school voucher program, created in 2023 and available to all students statewide for the first time this coming school year.
The Education Freedom Account program, created by the wide-ranging Arkansas LEARNS Act, provides up to 90% of the annual per-student public school funding rate for allowable expenses, including private school tuition and homeschooling. The state budget set aside $32 million for the program for the 2023-24 school year and an additional $65 million for 2024-25, totaling roughly $97 million.
That number increased to $177 million for the upcoming school year, not including Friday’s allocation of $90 million from the state’s restricted reserve fund, Department of Education Chief Fiscal Officer Greg Rogers told the Arkansas Legislative Council.
Little Rock Democratic Sen. Clarke Tucker asked Rogers if the cumulative amount of funds set aside will be enough to cover all accepted Education Freedom Account applications for the school year.
The education department is still accepting applications, Rogers and agency Chief of Staff Courtney Salas-Ford reminded the committee.
“We’re following the process that we have,” Rogers said. “Right now we think it is enough, but we’re still continuing to evaluate that.”
To manage the large influx of applications, ADE is evaluating and approving applications based on funding priority categories within designated application priority windows, instead of a first-come, first-served basis, according to the education department’s EFA website.
Three-week priority windows began in early March, and the sixth window will close Sunday, Salas-Ford said.
The Advocate reported that 37,000 students had been approved for the EFA program as of June 2. This number had increased to 39,000 out of the 44,000 applications received, education department officials said Friday.
About 28,000 applicants have sought vouchers for private school while 16,000 have been homeschooling applicants, Salas-Ford said.
The $90 million EFA allocation previously received approval Tuesday from the Legislative Council’s Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review subcommittee. The full council is responsible for giving final approval to its subcommittee’s actions when the Legislature is not in session
House Minority Leader Andrew Collins, D-Little Rock, tried Friday to pull the allocation out of PEER’s report and vote on it separately. His motion failed on a voice vote after Sen. Jim Dotson, R-Bentonville, asked education department officials how many EFA applications would not be able to receive funding without the $90 million.
Rogers said about 12,800 applicants would lack funding for the 2025-26 school year.
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