The average cost of private school tuition among the 121 schools participating in the second year of Arkansas' voucher program is $8,600, an Arkansas Advocate analysis shows. The per student amount of state Education Freedom Account vouchers in the 2024-25 school year will be up to $6,856. (Getty Images)
As Arkansas students head back to the classroom this month, around 12,000 will be attending one of more than 120 private schools that have been approved for the second year of the state’s school voucher program.
Created by the LEARNS Act , a 2023 law that overhauled Arkansas’ education system, the Educational Freedom Account Program allows state funds to be used for allowable education expenses such as private school tuition. The program’s being phased in with expanding eligibility criteria each year until it’s available to all Arkansas students in the 2025-2026 academic year.
According to EFA program applications provided by the Arkansas Department of Education on Aug. 9 through a public records request, 121 schools (93 renewing schools and 28 new applicants) have been approved for the 2024-2025 school year. Five more schools, one returning school and four first-year participants, are pending further review. About 100 schools received approval to participate in the program’s inaugural year.
Participation will be capped at around 14,000 students for the 2024-2025 academic year during which up to $6,856 per student can be used for educational expenses, an increase from about $6,600 last year. That’s slightly less than the average cost of tuition of about $8,600 at currently approved schools. While some schools include fees in their tuition, the majority have additional fees.
North Little Rock’s Calvary Academy, for example, charges $1,450 in tuition for first through 12th graders, the least expensive of all approved EFA schools. But additional fees range from roughly $650 to $1,000. Meanwhile, Thaden School, an independent Bentonville school and first-time EFA participant, reported the highest tuition at $28,500 for high school students.
Head of School Michael Malloy told the Advocate this summer that Thaden offers “a robust financial aid program” that includes indexed tuition, meaning families pay according to their income. Many EFA schools offer scholarships and discounts for being a church member or enrolling additional children.
As funding for EFA participants has increased for the program’s second year, so too has tuition. An analysis of state data found that approved EFA schools increased tuition by $530 on average. Seventeen schools kept all of their tuition levels flat year-over-year, while Heber Christian School’s students will see a $5,500 increase, the largest of approved EFA schools.
Kara Witzke, head of school for Joshua Academy, said her Crawford County school’s tuition is based on what it costs to educate a child. Oftentimes, she said Christian schools like hers set tuition based on what they think people are willing to pay, which isn’t the best business decision.
Once tuition is priced “on what it actually costs to deliver a high-quality education,” Witzke said, they can help families afford the tuition through things like the EFA program or scholarships.
Part of a high-quality education is talented teachers, and Witzke said she’s committed to paying educators well. She said it’s been challenging to keep pace with public schools, which increased starting pay to $50,000 following passage of the LEARNS Act, but the goal is to eventually exceed that minimum. Joshua Academy teachers will be paid $45,000 to $49,000 this year, she said.
“Pricing tuition appropriately is so important because teachers should not be our biggest donors … they’re incredibly talented individuals that deserve to be paid what they are worth,” Witzke said.
Implementation issues
Many inaugural year EFA participants praised the initiative for making private school more affordable for families looking for smaller classrooms or educational institutions that more closely align with their values, but the program’s rollout wasn’t without its challenges.
EFA payments are made quarterly to schools, but the timing of those payments can leave smaller schools or those just getting started like Joshua Academy “scrambling a little bit” to make payroll, Witzke said, especially at the start of the year as they await their first payment.
Witzke said she hopes the education department’s transition to a new payment system that’s intended to make the invoice process easier will mean getting paid more quickly.
“When you’re small, you’re living paycheck to paycheck, you’re living month to month, there’s not a lot of reserve and certainly as a startup there was no reserve,” Witzke said. “In fact we were fundraising throughout the year for those unexpected expenses. We have generous donors, so that was a blessing.”
Courtnei Jackson, principal and lead teacher at Shiloh Excel Christian School in Little Rock, said the new payment system has created a smoother process by generating invoices instead of schools having to create their own and send them to parents.
When you’re talking about lower-income families, who this is really supposed to serve, access to technology is sometimes an issue for those families. Digital knowledge is another issue, so knowing how to navigate some of those systems, just the language of the programming, they just find some of that hard.
– Jessica FitzPatrick, head of school at Clear Spring School
Additionally, parents have access to more school supply vendors than last year, Jackson said. During the program’s inaugural year, parents ran into issues trying to use their funds because they were expecting more vendors.
“That was a little challenging because there were not very many vendors to choose from,” she said. “And it took a while for them to get everything set up, which is normal when you’re doing something new.”
The Arkansas Department of Education hired Flordia-based ClassWallet to handle the financial side of the EFA program last year and switched to Indiana-based Student First Technologies for the upcoming year. The change resulted in a temporary closure of an online application portal this summer, which has delayed final approval notices for some students.
Private school participation grows in Arkansas voucher program’s second year
Shiloh Excel Christian School has 13 students and all but two qualify for the EFA program, Jackson said. Six have received final approval, but five are still pending review. School started Monday, leaving some parents anxious about the uncertainty, but Jackson said they’ll work with families to identify scholarships or payment plans if the voucher program falls through.
“The challenge for us is not knowing exactly if the parent has received the voucher yet, and school has already started for us…” she said. “…hopefully next year, as they get a little bit more acclimated with the new system, we’ll know and parents will know in advance if they’ve received the voucher or not.”
Jessica FitzPatrick, head of school at Eureka Springs’ Clear Spring School, said they’re in the same boat as a handful of their families also wait to receive final approval for the EFA program. While “that part’s been a little tricky,” she anticipates as many as 28 of her 73 students could qualify this year.
Arkansans eligible for the program’s inaugural year included students with disabilities or those experiencing homelessness, foster children, first-time kindergarteners, children of active duty military members and students in an “F”-rated school or school in need of Level 5 support. This year eligibility expands to include children of veterans, military reservists or first responders and students in “D”-rated schools.
Socioeconomic uplift has long been a goal of the independent school, FitzPatrick said, and to that end, Clear Springs provides scholarships. Unfortunately, the school doesn’t always have the money to do that, so the EFA program provides a service to the school and its families, she said. And while the new program is available to thousands of families, it’s not necessarily accessible, FitzPatrick said.
“When you’re talking about lower-income families, who this is really supposed to serve, access to technology is sometimes an issue for those families,” she said. “Digital knowledge is another issue, so knowing how to navigate some of those systems, just the language of the programming, they just find some of that hard.”
As a smaller school, FitzPatrick said they’ve been able to walk families through the process one-on-one, but said that’s likely more difficult at larger schools.
Although the governor has said the program is meant to last beyond its three-year rollout, FitzPatrick said she is concerned about what would happen if the program ended after schools and families have come to rely on it.
“No school wants to become dependent on this, or family, and then all of a sudden have it be not available,” she said. “…We are looking at other ways to meet our budget beyond this so that this isn’t something that we depend on.”
Potential growth
The EFA program will be open to all Arkansas students for the 2025-2026 academic year, which is affecting the way some private schools think about growth. While enrollment has remained steady at Clear Spring School, other institutions have seen an increase.
Shiloh Excel Christian School ended last year with nine students and is starting the fall semester with 13. Joshua Academy has more than doubled its enrollment. After ending last year with 47 students, Witzke said the school is expected to enroll around 115. They’ve also expanded to include two more grades and hired five more teachers.
Head of School Darrow Anderson credits West Memphis Christian School’s recent growth to multiple factors, including expanding extracurricular activities and joining the EFA program. The school anticipates welcoming more than 300 students this fall, he said.
Anderson said he had no complaints about his first year in the EFA program, which he called “a real pleasant experience.” ADE personnel have “been nothing but extremely helpful” and made sure the school had what it needed to be successful, he said.
Jackson said Shiloh Excel Christian School wants to remain smaller to be impactful, but they have discussed growing, something that could happen sooner rather than later because they can rely on EFA funds instead of just funding from individuals.
“I am grateful for the program because it indeed has helped with our enrollment,” she said. “Many of the families that have come to our school were concerned about tuition and so having the voucher has put them at ease…” she said. “ … We’re looking forward to what will be possible next year since it’ll be opened up for everyone and we’re just very excited.”
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