Education options are changing lives and futures.
of South Carolinians and
of SC K-12 Parents Support ESAs!
EdChoice, Morning Consult, October 2025, 532N
Watch our award-winning videos
School choice simply means families have options—and the freedom to choose the learning environment that best fits their child. Every day, parents make school choice decisions based on their child’s unique needs, talents, learning style, and circumstances.
In South Carolina, school choice can include traditional public schools, charter schools, magnet programs, private schools, homeschooling, and programs like Education Scholarship Trust Funds (ESTF). ESTF is just one tool and one style of school choice program, but it’s not the only one.
Palmetto NavigatEd exists to help families understand these options and confidently navigate them. The “right” choice may look different for each child—even within the same family—and that’s not just okay, it’s the whole point.
An ESA, or Education Scholarship Account, is a type of school choice program that allows parents or guardians of eligible and approved K-12 students to use a portal (website) to electronically transfer funds from a digital account set up for that parent to an approved education service provider (often a private school).Â
Through the South Carolina ESA program, known as ESTF (Education Scholarship Trust Fund), parents are empowered to customize an education experience that meets the individual needs of their child, using their online account to pay for approved services like tuition, therapy, tutoring, textbooks, and more.
Already working successfully in other states, ESAs are a powerful, proven innovation that creates an additional pathway for South Carolina students to have an education that equips them to reach their full education potential. Note: Some states use debit cards to pay providers, and other states reimburse parents for allowable expenses. South Carolina uses an online portal and not debit cards or reimbursement mechanisms. ESTF funds can only be used when paid directly from the online account to an approved vendor.
No. Both ESAs and vouchers are forms of school choice and the terms are often mistakenly used interchangeably. But the most recent new voucher program was passed back in 2018. ESAs are the overwhelming trend in America since 2020.
The key aspect that distinguishes ESAs from vouchers is parent control and customization. Instead of the state sending funds directly from the state to a specific private school, the state instead deposits funds into a parent-controlled account. These funds can then be spent on a wide array of approved education services, not only private school tuition like in voucher programs, where money is sent straight from the state to a private school.
State law gives us a specific list of qualifying expenses that the Education Scholarship Trust Fund can be spent on (our notes specified in italics):
Once applications are found to be complete (including supporting documentation), eligible applicants will be approved on a first come, first serve basis. Eligibility requirements include household income at or below 500% of the federal poverty line and proof of residency in South Carolina.
South Carolina’s legislation applies lessons learned in other states with specific checks built-in to prevent intentional or unintentional misuse, such as the use of an online portal (only) for education purchases. Parents will not be able to buy anything with ESA funds outside the portal of approved vendors, and any returns made will be refunded to parents’ ClassWallet accounts so they cannot pocket the funds. This makes ESAs as transparent—if not more—transparent than any other form of education spending.
As laid out in state law, parents of students receiving ESTF must agree to the following list of requirements (included in the parents’ affidavit signed when funds are accepted):Â
(a) to provide, at a minimum, a program of academic instruction for the eligible student in at least the subjects of English/language arts to include writing, mathematics, social studies, and science;
(b) to ensure the scholarship student takes assessments as referenced in Section 59-8-150 or provides assessments in a similar manner through other means if the scholarship student does not receive full-time instruction from an education service provider;
(c) to use the scholarship for qualifying expenses only for an approved provider to educate the scholarship student, subject to penalty;
(d) not to enroll their scholarship student in a public school as a full-time student in the resident school, as defined in this chapter;
(e) not to participate in a home instruction program under Section 59-65-40, 59-65-45, or 59-65-47 [homeschooling options 1, 2, and 3 respectively].
Additionally, they must agree to not try to use both ESTF and Exceptional SC or ESTF and the parental refundable tax credit for exceptional needs children.
Schools participating in the ESTF program are required to administer the state test or, as an alternative, schools may administer a nationally norm-referenced formative assessment approved by the South Carolina Department of Education. All approved tests have undergone linking studies with South Carolina state standards. Schools may administer these tests to all students, but only ESA scholarship students are required to take these assessments for state accountability purposes. All students in the ESTF program must submit annual documentation of academic progress to the Department of Education. These results are reported to the Education Oversight Committee annually.
No. First, there is no obligation for any school to participate in the program. Second, unlike in a traditional voucher program, the only financial transaction involving the state is when the trustee transfers funds to the parent’s account. The state does not directly choose or pay any education vendors, including private or religious schools.
Whether the parent spends ESA funds (legally, their student’s money not the government’s) on private schooling or some other form of education is up to the parent, so long as it is to a provider listed within the portal. This keeps the government out of independent schools and personal education decisions.
State law contains specific language that prevents the ESA program from expanding the regulatory authority of the state:
(F) An education service provider, not a public school, is not an agent of the state or federal government, therefore:
(1) the department or any other state agency may not regulate the educational program beyond what is set forth in this chapter of an approved education provider that accepts funds from an account;
(2) the creation of the program does not expand the regulatory authority of the State, its officers, or a school district to impose regulation of education service providers beyond those necessary to enforce the requirements of the program;
(3) the freedom of education service providers to provide for the educational needs of scholarship students without governmental control must not be abridged;
(4) an education service provider that accepts payment from an ESTF account pursuant to this chapter is not an agent of the state or federal government; and
(5) education service providers shall not be required to alter their creeds, practices, admissions policy, or curriculum in order to accept payments from an ESTF account.
No. Public schools in states that have ESA programs have not been harmed. For each student participating in the South Carolina Education Scholarship Account (ESA) program, a public school will no longer bear the cost of instructing the student. The Arizona program is the nation’s oldest ESA program (2011) and it currently enrolls about 70,000 students.
No. If parents are pleased with the outcomes of their local public school, they will have no need for an ESA. Many parents are content with the school for which their student is zoned.
The best predictor of the rate of transfers to ESAs from public schools would be to look at the largest and longest-running programs: Arizona and Florida. In Arizona, just a little over 70,000 students participate in the program (out of 1.1 million total students). In Florida (2014), about 83,000 students benefit from Education Scholarship Accounts (out of a 2.8 million student population).
No. ESAs are specifically designed to benefit students who face economic challenges or whose disabilities are not adequately being addressed. Often, these are the students who fall behind or are not well-served in traditional education environments.
The entry of ESAs onto the South Carolina educational landscape will not affect the rights of parents and students using the existing three options for homeschooling in any way. Homeschoolers using all three accountability methods will have the same freedoms and be unaffected by the ESA program.Â
The ESTF law specifically prohibits participation in homeschool options 1, 2, and 3 while using ESTF funds. This prohibition was enacted at the request of homeschool families and organizations that specifically asked to be left out of the program. Accordingly, parents who enroll their children to receive ESTF scholarships must agree “not to participate in a home instruction program under Section 59-65-40, 59-65-45, or 59-65-47.” Those South Carolina code sections refer to South Carolina’s homeschooling accountability options 1, 2, and 3 respectively.
However, the Education Scholarship Trust Fund law DOES create a new choice for ESTF parents to educate at home, outside the three homeschooling options in Title 59 Chapter 65 of SC law. The key phrase that allows parents the choice to educate at home resides in SC Code 59-8-115(I), which reads: “A parent’s signed agreement under subsection (E)(4) satisfies the state’s compulsory attendance law pursuant to Section 59-65-10.” This means that ESTF recipients are legally allowed to educate their children at home, provided they do not participate in the three traditional homeschool options.
Curriculum, online schools, instructional materials, and individual contracted classes are all qualifying ESTF expenses, so a parent could choose to customize an educational program for their child conducted primarily at home using ESTF, so long as they are not registered as an option 1, 2, or 3 homeschooler. Learn more about educating at home with ESTF here.
Parents
Providers
Everyone
The school choice environment in South Carolina is evolving rapidly. Just a few short years ago, families were forced to...
Everyone
The South Carolina ESA is worth $6,000 per year for tuition and books with up to $750 in additional funds...
Everyone
Yes. Even as the U.S. Supreme Court has overwhelmingly upheld school choice programs of all stripes, state Constitutional questions born...
