More than 12,000 North Carolina students used Opportunity Scholarships to leave public schools for private schools over the past two school years, according to a new state report. Most came from the income tier that Gov. Josh Stein’s proposed budget cap would split.
The report, presented to the State Board of Education on May 7 in Duplin County, found that 12,252 voucher recipients during the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years had been enrolled in North Carolina public schools immediately before receiving the scholarship. That total represents about 11.5% of the roughly 106,800 students participating in the program this year.
The largest share of those prior public school students came from Tier Two, covering household incomes of roughly $59,500 to $119,000 for a family of four. Tier One, the lowest-income bracket, accounted for the second-largest share, followed by Tier Three. Tier Four, the highest-income bracket above $267,000 a year, made up the smallest share at 11%.
“If you look in reporting year two, which is this year that we were reporting on, you can see that 4,049 of them were from 2024-25 fall,” Rob Dietrich, the NC Department of Public Instruction’s senior director of enterprise data and reporting, told the board. “And you have 7,833 new recipients who were prior-year enrollees, for 12,252 total.”
Stein’s recommended budget, released April 21, proposes a moratorium on new Opportunity Scholarships and a household income cap of 150% of the federal reduced-price school lunch threshold. That equates to roughly $90,000 a year for a family of four.
That figure falls inside Tier Two, meaning every student in Tiers Three and Four, along with Tier-Two families earning above $90,000, would lose access over time. The DPI report does not specify how many of those prior public school families fall above or below Stein’s proposed $90,000 cap.
Carolina Journal previously reported the cap would remove an estimated 60,000 students from the program statewide.
Stein’s budget frames the change as restoring the original purpose of the program: “This returns income limits to 2021 levels and ensures that public funds are targeted to students in need and otherwise support public school students and teachers.”
Under the 2024 statute that expanded the program, the General Assembly declared its intent to create a Public School Reinvestment Fund using the difference between Opportunity Scholarship awards and what those students would have cost public schools. The cumulative reinvestment amount through fiscal year 2026-27 totals $35.75 million, according to the DPI report.
But none of that money has reached public schools. “We did not receive that $10 million from last year,” Dietrich said, referring to the calculation from the previous year.
State Board Member Jill Camnitz asked whether lawmakers could simply count general public school appropriations toward the reinvestment requirement.
Amanda Fratrik, DPI’s school business services director, responded: “The language in the law says that it’s their intent to create a public school reinvestment fund and to put the funds that are identified in this report into that fund. As of now, there has been no money that has been put into that fund.”
Among other findings from the report: 87.6% of the prior public school enrollees were students without disabilities, 95% were not English learners, and 61.8% were not economically disadvantaged. Wake, Mecklenburg, Cumberland, Pitt, and Durham counties together accounted for more than half of all transfers. Grades six, seven, and four saw the most movement.