Live Free and Learn: A Case Study of NH’s Scholarship Tax Credit Program

By Jason Bedrick

In 2012, the New Hampshire Legislature passed the Opportunity Scholarship Act (OSA), the first scholarship tax credit program to allow scholarships to cover certain homeschooling expenses. Section III details the OSA’s program design and outlines the legislative and legal challenges to the program.

The OSA’s first-year implementation is discussed in Section IV, including the results of a survey of the parents of scholarship recipients. Since the OSA went into effect, the Network for Educational Opportunity, New Hampshire’s first and so far only active scholarship organization, distributed $128,340 in scholarships to 103 students for the 2013-14 school year. Ninety-one percent of those recipients are from families with income low enough to qualify for the federal “National School Lunch” program.

The survey found that 97 percent of parents of scholarship recipients are satisfied with their chosen private or home schools, 68 percent noticed measurable academic improvement since receiving the scholarship, and 74 percent of private school parents reported that they would have been unable to afford tuition without the scholarship. These findings are consistent with previous research and demonstrate once again the promise of educational choice programs.

Click here to read the full report, published by the Show Me Institute