SC school voucher recipients spent $6 million last year. What did they buy?
More than half of the $6.15 million in school voucher money spent in South Carolina last year lined the pockets of three big box retailers that sell electronics and office supplies, new data shows.
Voucher recipients spent more than $3.1 million at Best Buy, Staples and Office Depot, according to an analysis of 2024-2025 Education Scholarship Trust Fund transaction data obtained by The State Media Co.
Participants in the ESTF program, which publicly subsidizes the expenses of qualified families that enroll their K-12 children outside zoned public schools, may spend their scholarships on an array of educational goods and services purchased from vendors approved by the S.C. Department of Education.
The vast majority of purchases made at the three big box stores are categorized as “computers and technological devices” and “instructional materials,” according to the expenditure data, which identifies vendors and broad expense categories but not the individual items purchased.
The disproportionate amount spent on computers and instructional materials is likely due to families’ inability to use their $6,000 scholarships on private school tuition for much of the 2024-2025 school year.
The South Carolina Supreme Court struck down the portion of the voucher law that permitted parents to use the taxpayer-funded scholarships for private school tuition about six weeks into last school year, but left the rest of the law intact.
Participants responded by redirecting their spending to technology, tutoring and school materials, which accounted for about 60% of voucher expenditures last school year, data shows.
Spending on private school tuition and fees, which remained prohibited until the General Assembly revamped the voucher law last May, accounted for about a third of all expenditures during the 2024-2025 school year.
The remaining money went toward an assortment of items, including curriculum and textbooks, educational therapies, transportation and out-of-district fees charged by public schools, data shows.
Barring another court decision that freezes spending on private school tuition, it’s unlikely technological devices will account for such a large portion of voucher spending in the future.
As of February, computers and technology accounted for only 11% of voucher expenditures this school year, according to data obtained by The State. Instead of devices, the bulk of voucher money is now being spent on private school tuition, data shows.
State Rep. Neal Collins, R-Pickens, remains concerned, however, that millions of taxpayer dollars are being spent on electronic devices that he fears could be resold by unscrupulous participants.
Earlier this month, SLED arrested a Gaston woman who allegedly misused her child’s education scholarship to buy electronics with the intent to resell them, according to an arrest warrant.
While the Department of Education prohibits voucher recipients from seeking reimbursement for outside purchases or accepting cash refunds from providers, the recent fraud case illustrates the potential for abuse in the system, Collins said.
State education officials defended their oversight of the program and said they had implemented several additional guardrails to deter fraud, including limiting the number of technology items that can be purchased and capping the dollar amounts of those purchases.
Which retailers got the most voucher money?
Best Buy received a whopping 37% of all voucher money that was spent last year, according to Department of Education data.
The electronics retailer brought in nearly $2.3 million from South Carolina voucher recipients, or about 3 ½ times more than any other program vendor.
Staples and Office Depot were the next largest recipients of voucher dollars.
The national office supply chains, which participants turned to for instructional materials and technological devices, received $650,000 and $200,000, respectively, data shows.
Other popular program vendors included e-learning platforms Outschool and ArgoPrep; ed tech companies Channie’s and ScanMarker; and homeschool curriculum providers Home Works for Books and Time4Learning.
While the voucher law explicitly prohibits participation by homeschool students, the Department of Education has allowed participation by home-educated students who are not enrolled in one of South Carolina’s three statutory home instruction models.
Which schools got the most voucher money?
Voucher recipients spent slightly more than $2 million on tuition and fees at private schools last school year.
About half that money was spent before Sept. 11, 2024, when the state Supreme Court struck down private school tuition payments as unconstitutional, and the other half was spent after May 7, 2025, when the governor signed the amended voucher bill into law.
More than 80% of the 150 or so private schools that received voucher dollars last school year offer faith-based instruction. They range widely in enrollment, mission and grade levels served, and span the state from Gaffney to Hilton Head.
Of the 14 private schools that received at least $25,000 in voucher money last year, all but one are Christian. The lone secular school, Northeast Enrichment Academy in Columbia, has just 25 students, according to the South Carolina Independent Schools Association.
Small Catholic and non-denominational Christian schools were among the most popular settings for voucher recipients who spent their scholarships at private schools.
Three Catholic grade schools, all with fewer than 200 students, ranked among the top private school beneficiaries in the state, data shows. Our Lady of Peace in North Augusta ($85,100), Divine Redeemer in Hanahan ($75,005) and St. Joseph in Anderson ($55,861) were among only five private schools in the state that received at least $50,000 in scholarship funds.
Westgate Christian School, the Spartanburg-based ministry of Westgate Baptist Church, was the single largest private school recipient of scholarship money during the 2024-2025 school year, according to S.C. Department of Education data.
The preK-12 school, which enrolls about 340 students, took in $125,027 last school year, or nearly 50% more than any other school in the state.
Locally, the three largest private school recipients of scholarship dollars were Northeast Enrichment Academy, an elementary school in northeast Columbia; the Center for Learning, a nonsectarian K-5 academy in the Rochelle Heights/Victory Garden neighborhood, west of Forest Acres; and St. Martin de Porres, a preK-6 Catholic school located in the Waverly Historic District, data shows.
Few voucher recipients spent their scholarships at public schools outside their zoned districts, as the law permitted.
Less than $44,000 — a fraction of 1% of all voucher expenditures — went to public schools during the 2024-2025 school year, according to S.C. Department of Education data.
Among the public school districts that received voucher money, Florence School District 5 was a clear outlier.
The three-school district in Johnsonville, which has just over 1,200 students, collected more than every other district in the state combined, data shows. Most of the $22,500 that Florence 5 received came from out-of-district students who already attended schools in the district, its superintendent told The State earlier this year.
Ineligible participants spent voucher money
Voucher participants who should not have been enrolled in the program accounted for a small amount of the money spent last year.
Eighty-two of the 1,005 ineligible participants who received voucher money last year spent some of it, state education officials said.
The roughly $64,000 spent by those individuals was not recovered, officials said.
About 85% of that money was spent on marketplace goods, such as computers, tablets and printers, according to transaction data provided by the department. The remainder was used for tutoring, homeschool curricula and textbooks, data shows.
Unlike the transaction data for eligible voucher participants, ineligible participant data included descriptions of the items purchased, and thus offered a clearer picture of how taxpayer money was spent.
The 82 ineligible participants purchased a total of 37 tablets, 21 laptops, four desktops with monitors, seven printers and nearly 40 sets of headphones, among other electronics items, data shows. They also bought various school supplies, such as pencils, pens, notebooks and backpacks, educational games, workbooks and online courses.
The courses, offered through Outschool, contained lessons on a wide variety of topics that ranged from pirates (”The Real Pirates of the Caribbean”) to the paranormal (”Beyond the Veil: A Journey Through Paranormal and Supernatural History”), transaction data shows.