State Superintendent Ellen Weaver talks at a rally for National School Choice Week on Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025. (Shaun Chornobroff/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — The Senate passed a bill Thursday that would create a program allowing certain K-12 students to use state lottery funds to pay tuition in private schools.
After two weeks of debate, including friction among Republicans as some tried to remove all eligibility caps on the program, the Senate passed the bill 32-12 along party lines. The bill would revive private tuition payments halted by the state Supreme Court last September.
Sen. Shane Martin, a former school board member in Spartanburg 6, was the only Republican to vote no. He did not say why.
Republicans made the bill a top priority for the session, saying they wanted to renew payments to the parents of children accepted for the program’s first year before the state’s high court stopped them a month into the school year. Donations will keep every student in their private schools at least through the third quarter of this school year.
As passed Thursday, the bill will allow up to 10,000 students whose parents earn up to 300% of the federal poverty level to receive about $7,500 to pay for private school tuition next school year. That money would come from lottery revenue, instead of pulling from the general fund, which the S.C. Supreme Court found violated the state constitution.
Voters who approved SC’s lottery never intended it to fund K-12 vouchers, Democrats argue
The income cap would increase to 400% for 15,000 students in 2026-27. The funding those students receive would change depending on how much aid legislators send to public schools, with the scholarships equivalent to 90% of the per-pupil average.
While students already enrolled in private schools would be eligible, they would have to wait until after public schools students had a chance to apply before picking up open spots.
What changed
Initially, 15,000 students whose families were making up to 600% of the federal poverty level would be eligible by the 2027-2028 school year to receive the full per-pupil average the state funds, which this coming school year would be about $8,500. That would come after two years of lower caps.
Unlike the law passed several years ago, students already enrolled in private school would also be able to receive the money. Students enrolled in a public school would have first grabs, though, after a change passed Thursday. That would let students whose families want to send them to private school but don’t have the means to get first pick, said Sen. Michael Johnson, who proposed the change.
“I’m not stopping anyone in a private school from applying,” the Fort Mill Republican said. “I’m saying, ‘Hey, let’s let the poorest kids have an opportunity to apply before the kids in private school.’”
The final income cap of 600% of the poverty level, or $187,200 for a family of four, would allow nearly every student in the state to qualify, said Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey.
“I think that’s the K-12 equivalent of free college,” the Edgefield Republican said. “I don’t want to bail out people who are already able to do that. I want to help people who are stuck.”
That was the original intention of the law passed two years ago, Massey said. Legislators wanted to help poor children attending schools that didn’t meet their needs be able to afford to go to whatever school they chose, he said.
Massey successfully proposed changing the amount of money offered as well, arguing that the $6,000 legislators offered in the 2023 law was based on what a committee decided was reasonable based on private school tuition.
The proposed $8,500 “is too much money,” Massey said, arguing that schools would raise tuition to match the state-funded scholarships.
“If you allow for a scholarship of $8,500, the schools are going to charge $8,500,” he said.
Push for universal
Sen. Wes Climer pushed back against his own party leader’s proposed changes, calling on his peers repeatedly to remove all limitations on who can use the money.
“Here’s the bottom line: If you’re against school choice, you are for this amendment,” the Rock Hill Republican said to fellow senators after Massey’s first attempt to pass the changes. “If you are for school choice, you are against this amendment.”
Massey’s initial proposal to change the bill Tuesday failed, with a mix of Republicans and Democrats voting it down. Senators picked up the pieces separately Thursday, adding back in Massey’s decreases in the income cap and scholarship amount.
Toward the end of Thursday’s debate, Climer proposed a change that would get rid of all eligibility requirements in the bill, making the program universal. Senators voted down that plan.
Democrats and Republicans alike disapproved on proposals from Climer and Sen. Josh Kimbrell, R-Spartanburg, to expand eligibility.
Sen. Darrell Jackson dubbed it the “Shane Beamer” plan, referring to the fact that the University of South Carolina football coach who makes $6.4 million each year would be able to receive the funds to pay his children’s tuition if he so wished.
“What I’m hearing is that the CEO who makes a million dollars a year would never really have school choice in South Carolina because the government isn’t paying for it,” the Hopkins Democrat said.
Republicans focused on the cost of the program as a whole. If the state instituted universal school choice, which would allow any child to receive money to attend private school, that could cost the state as much as $367 million each year, Hembree said.
Climer and Kimbrell also proposed getting rid of the scholarships from the lottery fund and replacing them with a tax credit that would balance out by removing money from the education fund. While that proposal was thrown out as not being germane to the original bill, it caught the interest of some senators.
Pulling from the lottery fund could pass constitutional muster, but a tax credit is “bulletproof,” argued Davis.
“I don’t know why we’re so determined to do something in a more complicated way,” Davis said.
A simultaneous rally
As the Senate was debating the program, a rally on the Statehouse’s front steps celebrated National School Choice Week.
State Superintendent Ellen Weaver, a longtime proponent of education vouchers, held a sign reading, “choice means hope.”
“Education choice and freedom is on the move in South Carolina,” Weaver said. “Here in South Carolina, we are building the education system of the future.”
Lt. Gov Pamela Evette praised the state for already having a number of choices for students already available, including public, private, charter and virtual schools.
“In South Carolina, we are blessed to have so many options for education,” said Evette, a mother of three.
The ability to transfer to another school is a major deal for students who can benefit from smaller class sizes and more one-on-one attention, said Candance Carroll, a lobbyist for advocacy group Americans for Prosperity South Carolina.
She included her own daughter, a 10-year-old who has autism, among them.
“I needed a school that could meet her unique needs,” Carroll said. “That’s when I understood the power of school choice.”
Reporter Shaun Chornobroff contributed to this report.