Education Freedom Savings Accounts

Education Freedom Savings Accounts, or “EFSAs,” are the primary subject of Senate Bill 193-FN. EFSAs would provide financial support to primary and secondary school students in New Hampshire by the state government to help fund students’ private school education or homeschooling if that student chooses to leave the public school system. The aim of this legislation is to expand school choice options for New Hampshire families and improve the quality of New Hampshire schools overall by increasing competition. However, this comes at a cost to the state of New Hampshire, as appropriations are not only transferred from districts to families, but the districts are also partially compensated for losses in the form of “additional stabilization grants.” The intent of this report is to explore the possible costs of this legislation to the state of New Hampshire and to New Hampshire public school districts by creating a model to calculate these costs. The model employs a range of estimates to establish upper and lower cost estimates of the financial impact.