Applications for new Texas education savings accounts close Tuesday, March 17

Under the $1 billion program, participating students will receive state funds for private education or homeschooling during the 2026-27 school year. It is unlikely that all applicants will be accepted, as application data shows more students have applied than the program can fund.

The application is available through Odyssey, a New York-based company administering the program in partnership with the comptroller’s office. Here’s what to know as the application deadline nears.

The big picture

State lawmakers created the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program in 2025, which Republican leaders called a “victory” after years of bipartisan opposition to the plan. Proponents of the program have said it will expand education options for families who do not want to send their children to a public school.

“For years, parents have asked for more control and more choices when it comes to their children’s education. Texas is delivering,” acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock said in a Feb. 16 statement.

Some public school advocates, Democratic lawmakers and other opponents of the TEFA program have expressed concerns that it will unfairly benefit students already enrolled in private schools and divert funding from public school districts facing financial challenges, Community Impact reported.

“I have a message to the working family communities in Texas: vouchers are a scam intended to benefit rich people,” Rep. Ana-María Rodríguez Ramos, D-Richardson, said on the Texas House floor in April. “These private schools are not required to accept your children. You give up the rights you had in public schools. The full cost of tuition, transportation and textbooks will almost never be covered fully by the voucher.”

Students enrolling in private schools for the 2026-27 school year will receive $10,474 to spend on tuition and related expenses. The average cost of Texas private school tuition during the 2023-24 academic year was $10,965 for kindergarten through eighth-grade students and $14,986 for high school students, according to the Texas Private Schools Association.

Homeschool students are eligible for $2,000, and students with disabilities can receive up to $30,000, depending on their individual needs.

Applying for the program

TEFA applications are not first-come, first-served. The comptroller’s office has said that families who apply at the last minute will not be treated differently from those who signed up when applications opened in early February, and Odyssey will not begin reviewing applications until after the window closes March 17.

The application is designed to be completed in about 15 minutes, and families can edit their submissions through March 17, per the comptroller’s office. Families must provide information about their residency and household income, each child’s educational history and whether a child will need special education supports. An application checklist is available here, and a 13-page program guide from the comptroller’s office is available here.

Under state law, any student who is a U.S. citizen, resides in Texas and is eligible to attend a Texas public school, open-enrollment charter school or pre-K program can apply for the program.

Families must submit separate applications to their chosen private schools, although state law does not require private schools to accept all students. As of press time, over 2,100 in-person and online schools were participating in the program, alongside hundreds of other service providers. A majority of the schools are located in and around Texas’ largest cities, per a map on the program website.

Zooming in

With funding capped at $1 billion for the 2026-27 school year, between 90,000 and 100,000 students will likely be accepted. Approximately 156,000 applications had been submitted as of March 6, according to the comptroller’s office.

About 36,000 of those applications were submitted on behalf of students currently enrolled in a Texas public or open-enrollment charter school, according to data obtained by the Texas Center for Voucher Transparency, a public school advocacy group tracking the program’s rollout.

Applications will be prioritized in the following order through a need- and income-based lottery system:

• First tier: Students with disabilities whose annual household incomes are at or below 500% of the federal poverty line, or about $165,000 for a family of four
• Second tier: Families with incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty line, which is about $66,000 for a family of four
• Third tier: Families earning between 200%-500% of the federal poverty line
• Fourth tier: Families above 500% of the federal poverty line—limited to 20% of total program funding

Students in Tier 1 made up about 11% of the first 123,000 applications, Feb. 22 data from the comptroller’s office shows. Families in the second tier comprised about 30% of applications, while 31% of applicants were in Tier 3.

Another 28% of applicants were in Tier 4. Some of these families likely will not be accepted into the first year of the program, as state law limits funding for higher-income families whose children do not have disabilities to 20% of total program funds.

The size of the program’s waitlist could shape how much state lawmakers choose to spend on education savings accounts when they return to the Capitol in 2027. The nonpartisan Texas Legislative Budget Board previously projected that due to demand, the program would grow to $3.3 billion by 2028 and $4.8 billion by 2030.

What’s next?

The comptroller’s office said it will begin notifying families if they are accepted into the program in early April, and families must select the private school they plan to send their children to, if applicable, by July 15.

Families will be able to access at least 25% of their education savings account funding in July, according to a timeline on the program website. At least 50% of the funds are scheduled to be available to families Oct. 1, and all funding for the 2026-27 school year will be available in April 2027. If families do not spend all their allotted money, it will roll over for the next school year.