Tennessee’s voucher caps under fire less than a year after passage

Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton is aggressively pushing to dismantle the enrollment caps on the state’s new Education Freedom Scholarship program—safeguards that were essential to winning rural Republican support just months ago. His stated goal: at least double the program to 40,000+ students[i] and eliminate both income and enrollment caps entirely. This rapid pivot echoes a well-documented pattern from other states where voucher programs that began with “reasonable” limits quickly ballooned into multi-billion dollar entitlements, with costs exceeding projections by 3-10x while primarily subsidizing families already in private schools.

Sexton’s statements reveal aggressive expansion timeline

Speaker Sexton wasted little time before calling for the removal of caps that made his voucher legislation passable. In October 2025—barely nine months after the Education Freedom Act became law—his communications director announced: “The Speaker is committed to at least doubling the EFA scholarships to meet the demand from this year’s application process.”[ii] By December, Sexton’s ambitions had grown more explicit.

In a December 10, 2025 interview with Chalkbeat Tennessee, Sexton declared income caps “arbitrary” and argued: “Whether you’re making $30,000 or $140,000, you should have the opportunity” for school choice. He elaborated: “I see it as their tax money, and they should have the opportunity to put it where they want to go, whether they want to send their kid to a public school or a public charter school or to a private school.”[iii] Two days later, he told NewsChannel 9: “ESA is income limited, which causes some problems, and also it’s capped on the number of scholarships that can be offered. I’d like to remove both caps.”[iv]

Sexton’s justification relies heavily on demand data from the program’s first year: 42,827 applications[v] for only 20,000 available slots. In a November interview with WSMV4, he set a specific target: “We had a lot more demand than we had supply, so that’s a positive… I would say a minimum 42,000, but we’ll see what happens.” When questioned about affordability, Sexton dismissed concerns: “We can afford to do it because we can’t afford to allow our students to continue to be in schools where they’re not being challenged.”[vi]

This aggressive timeline—pushing for expansion before the first year has even concluded—represents a significant departure from the safeguards that enabled passage. During the January 2025 special session, lawmakers explicitly cited the 20,000-student cap and 5% annual growth limit as protection against “budget woes that plagued rapidly expanding voucher programs in other states like Arizona.” Lt. Governor Randy McNally has urged caution, noting: “While there is clearly an appetite to expand, until we start examining the overall budget and revenue numbers it would be premature to commit to any specific scope.”

Other states reveal consistent pattern of cap removal and cost explosion

A systematic review of voucher programs in five states reveals a strikingly consistent trajectory: programs begin with restrictions marketed as fiscal safeguards, then systematically eliminate those guardrails, triggering cost growth that exceeds initial projections by 300-1,000%. Perhaps most concerning, research across all five states shows 65-85% of voucher recipients were already enrolled in private schools—representing entirely new state expenditures rather than savings from students leaving public schools.

Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account provides the starkest warning. When the state made the program universal in 2022, legislators projected costs of $65 million annually. Actual costs exploded to $708 million within two years—more than ten times the projection.[vii] Enrollment surged 409% in a single year, from 12,127 to 61,689 students.[viii] Governor Katie Hobbs stated the program “lacks accountability and will likely bankrupt the state,” noting it contributed to a $1.3-1.6 billion combined budget deficit in 2024-2025.[ix] Research found 71% of new voucher recipients had never attended public school.

Florida’s Family Empowerment Scholarship followed a similar arc. After eliminating income restrictions and enrollment caps in March 2023, costs jumped from $1.4 billion to $3.9 billion within two years—a 179% increase.[x] The Florida Senate had projected costs of $646 million; actual costs reached six times that amount.[xi] The state auditor found $398 million in unexpected costs for 2024-25 alone, while the state “lost track” of 30,000 students and couldn’t account for $270 million. Vouchers now consume 23% of Florida’s education budget, up from 12% just three years ago.

Ohio’s EdChoice Expansion saw enrollment increase 283% in a single year after income limits were removed in 2023, from 23,272 to 88,095 students.[xii] Costs tripled from $124 million to over $400 million. Yet despite 70,000 new vouchers issued, private school enrollment grew by only 2,719-3,719 students—confirming that nearly all new vouchers subsidized families already paying private school tuition. Seventy-four Ohio school districts have filed a lawsuit calling the program an “existential threat.”

Indiana’s Choice Scholarship Program illustrates the long-term trajectory. Starting at approximately $15 million in 2011, costs have reached $497 million for 2024-25—a 3,213% increase over 14 years. After the state raised income limits to 400% of the federal poverty level (roughly $230,000 for a family of four) in 2023, students from households earning $200,000 or more increased nearly ten-fold. Research found 67-70% of voucher students have never attended public school. The typical voucher recipient is a white, elementary-aged girl from a household earning $103,000—50% above the state median.

West Virginia’s Hope Scholarship demonstrates how quickly universal triggers can transform programs. Costs have climbed from $7.7 million in 2022-23 to a projected $250 million when universal eligibility takes effect in 2026-27—a 32-fold increase. About half of participating private schools are unaccredited, and one-third are not even located in West Virginia. No student in McDowell County, the state’s poorest, has used the program.

Tennessee faces significant fiscal exposure if caps removed

Tennessee’s Education Freedom Scholarship currently costs approximately $144 million for 20,000 students at $7,296 per pupil (tied to the TISA base funding amount). Official projections estimate at least $1.1 billion over five years under current caps. However, if caps are removed as Sexton proposes, costs could escalate dramatically.

Using the $7,296 per-student amount, expansion would cost approximately $365 million annually for 50,000 students, $730 million for 100,000 students, and $1.82 billion for 250,000 students (25% of public school enrollment). Tennessee has roughly 1 million public school students and another 154,000 already in private schools. State analysis projects 65% of current vouchers will go to students already in private schools—tracking precisely with other states’ experience.

The state’s fiscal position adds urgency to these concerns. Tennessee’s total budget has grown to $59.8 billion for FY 2025-26, with roughly $13.4 billion allocated to K-12 education ($13,324 per pupil, ranking 43rd nationally). State Finance Commissioner Jim Bryson has warned the budget will be “tighter” next year,[xiii] with tax growth at just 0-2%. Several Republican legislators who voted against the original bill specifically cited fiscal concerns.

Rep. Rush Bricken voted no, explaining: “I’m really afraid that in the long term, this thing is going to get expensive for our state’s budget.”[xiv] Rep. Jody Barrett of Dickson compared the program to “Gilligan’s Island” welfare for the wealthy and warned of a “fiscal cliff.” Sen. Page Walley argued: “Our public schools are going to lose a significant amount of funding from the state… Tennesseans simply can’t afford this expensive program.” Twenty House Republicans voted against the voucher bill despite supermajority pressure—an unusually high number of GOP defections.

The program’s “hold harmless” provision, designed to protect public schools from funding losses, is capped at just $19-29 million—a threshold legislators predict will be reached quickly. Meanwhile, Rep. Ronnie Glynn noted that 42% of rural districts have zero private schools; their tax dollars subsidize vouchers used predominantly in urban and suburban areas with existing private school infrastructure.

The pattern suggests a “bait-and-switch” on compromise promises

The sequence of events follows a pattern observable across multiple states. Voucher advocates initially propose caps and restrictions to secure passage, explicitly citing these limitations as fiscal safeguards and assurances to skeptical legislators. Once the program is operational and demand data can be cited, advocates immediately push to remove those same safeguards—often before a single year of results can be evaluated.

In Tennessee’s case, the timeline is unusually compressed. The Education Freedom Act passed in January 2025 with caps described as “safeguard measures against budget woes that plagued rapidly expanding voucher programs in other states like Arizona.” Applications opened in May 2025. By October 2025, Speaker Sexton was already calling for doubling the program.[xv] By December 2025, he was advocating for removing both income and enrollment caps entirely. The General Assembly reconvenes January 12, 2026—meaning expansion legislation could move forward before the first academic year under the current program has even concluded.

The comparative state data provides substantial evidence that removal of caps—regardless of initial assurances—leads to costs that consistently exceed projections by multiples, not percentages. Every state that has removed voucher caps has seen costs grow far faster than anticipated, with the majority of funds subsidizing families who would have paid for private school regardless.

Speaker Sexton’s push to remove Education Freedom Scholarship caps represents a textbook case of the voucher expansion pattern documented across multiple states. The trajectory from “limited, capped pilot program” to “universal entitlement” has played out in Arizona (11 years), Florida (4 years), Ohio (immediate), West Virginia (5 years), and Indiana (14 years)—with costs exceeding projections by 3-10x in every case. Tennessee appears to be compressing this timeline to less than one year.

The fundamental question facing Tennessee legislators is whether the caps they cited as essential fiscal safeguards in January 2025 were genuine policy commitments or temporary measures designed to secure passage. The comparative data suggests that if caps are removed, Tennessee should expect costs to grow from $144 million to potentially $700+ million or more within a few years, following the Arizona trajectory.[xvi] Rural legislators who negotiated the current caps as their condition for support may find those assurances were never intended to be permanent.