SC senators try again to help parents pay for private school. This time, with lottery money
South Carolina legislators are trying again to help parents pay for private schools. The idea is quickly gaining momentum.
The new proposal would use revenue from the South Carolina Education Lottery to support scholarships, or vouchers, for qualifying families to help pay for private schools. Despite opposition from Democrats, the legislation is moving forward in the state Senate.
If passed, South Carolina might be the only state to fund the private school vouchers with lottery money, although at least one other state is considering it.
A bill sponsored by Sen. Greg Hembree, R-Horry passed in a 32-12 roll call vote on Thursday and received final approval on Tuesday. It now moves to the House.
Under the K-12 Education Lottery Scholarship Fund, qualifying families would receive vouchers equal to 90% of the state’s annual average per pupil spending. For the 2025-26 fiscal year the vouchers would be about $7,500. The amount will likely rise each year as the average per pupil spending increases.
Under the bill, about 10,000 students would be awarded the vouchers this coming year, Hembree said, which would cost about $75 million. By the 2026-2027 academic year, as many as 15,000 students could receive the scholarship.
Aimed at low-income students, the scholarships would be available to households that make below 400% of the poverty level, which is about $125,000 for a family of four, Hembree said. The median household income for a family of four in South Carolina was around $90,000 in 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, meaning the vouchers would be available to most families.
Preference would be given to families who received money under a similar program passed by the General Assembly in 2023 but overturned by the state Supreme Court; students who are currently attending public schools; and students in households making less than 300% of the poverty level. Students currently enrolled at a private school will be eligible, though they will not be given priority.
Securing the funds for the voucher program has been an uphill battle, despite strong support from Republican state lawmakers.
In 2023, the legislature passed the S.C. Education Scholarship Trust Fund Act that called for allotting public funds in the state budget to help parents pay to send students to private schools..
The program would have provided $6,000 to thousands of low-income families through an annual appropriation by the General Assembly, to be spent on the tuition and fees at any given institution, as well as other educational expenses, such as transportation, tutoring or instructional materials.
But the state Supreme Court struck down the law in September last year, just as the first round of beneficiaries were beginning the school year. Following a lawsuit by the South Carolina NAACP, the South Carolina Education Association and a group of public school parents, the court ruled in a 3-2 decision that parts of the law violated the state Constitution, which prohibits using public funds for the “direct benefit” of private schools.
Advocates of the voucher program argued that under the 2023 law, funds used for the scholarships should not be considered public because the law set up a trust, and the money would be sent to the trust. The court disagreed.
“This is not the first time we have encountered an attempt to deploy a trust to avoid constitutional limits on the use of public funds,” the court said in its majority opinion.
Proponents of Hembree’s latest bill say the plan would be a win for school choice advocates, who say it allows South Carolina families to select an education option that best meets their child’s needs. At a school choice rally at the State House on Thursday, state education Superintendent Ellen Weaver said that choice is part of the “education ecosystem of the future.”
“Education choice and freedom is on the move here in South Carolina,” Weaver said.
Even so, there will be challenges. Opponents worry the law would take money away from traditional public schools.
Lottery revenue has fallen in recent years. According to data from the state Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office, lottery revenue dropped from $612.1 million during the 2020-21 fiscal year to an estimated $538.2 million during the 2024-25 fiscal year. It is predicted to fall further still.
But it hasn’t dipped enough to worry Hembree, who said the revenue has remained steady at around $550 million for some time. And the new K-12 scholarships likely won’t impact existing scholarships to technical school and other institutions of higher education. Plus, there are a number of lottery revenue expenditures that could easily be paid for from the general fund instead, Hembree said.
“It’s shifting money around, rather than spending new money,” Hembree said.
Lottery revenue has been used to provide technology equipment and resources to K-12 schools and to purchase school buses, according to the S.C. Education Lottery’s website.
Hembree also said he expects another lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of using lottery money to pay for private school scholarships. But he believes the new provisions, and funding it through lottery revenue, are airtight.
“Lottery funds are not taxpayer funds. They’re different,” Hembree said. “I think we’re on very solid ground constitutionally. But that’s still their call.”
If passed, South Carolina would be one of the only states to fund private school scholarships through the lottery. According to reporting by Education Week, most states fund such programs through their general funds or tax credits. However, Tennessee is also considering a bill to fund private school vouchers through revenue from both the lottery and sports betting.
Critics say Hembree’s bill funds discrimination and undermines low-income and rural schools. Sen. Russell Ott, D-Calhoun, called it “welfare for the wealthy” during the bill’s third reading on Tuesday.
Sherry East, president of the South Carolina Education Association, said in a statement that the bill was a “troubling” attempt to score political points.
“This misguided effort to divert public funds from public education towards private school will further deplete existing resources and undermine our public school system that is to benefit all South Carolinians,” East said.
A coalition of education groups, including the South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center, ProTruth South Carolina, Families Against Book Bans and SC for Ed, released a joint statement against the bill.
“The true intent of the bill seems to be to offer financial incentives for families to continue to send their students to private schools, or to switch from public to private schools,” the coalition wrote. “This is likely to result in declines in enrollment in schools which will be insufficient to lower overall costs, but significant enough to result in lower funding for some of our neediest districts.”
Hembree emphasized that the voucher program is a small piece of the state’s K-12 education system, which serves more than 780,000 students. He said that while schools will lose out on state funding per pupil, they will be able to keep revenue generated by local taxes.
Steve Nuzum, a former teacher involved with ProTruth South Carolina and SC for Ed, doesn’t see it that way. He saw the impact of local funding on schools, he said, and rural districts will suffer.
School districts with smaller tax bases rely more on state funding than others.
“Even if we’re going to do this, could we not make sure that we had adequately funded all of our state’s public schools before we try to move money over into these voucher or neo-voucher programs?” Nuzum said. “It’s a fallacy to pretend that local funding can cover costs of having a modern public school system ... if the state isn’t going to meet its constitutional obligation to do that, then they should definitely not be trying to spend money elsewhere on private schools.”
This story was originally published February 5, 2025 at 12:30 PM.
