Comptroller Don Huffines is requesting that state lawmakers increase funding for education savings accounts to more than $2 billion for the next biennium.
Known as Texas Education Freedom Accounts, the ESAs are administered by the comptroller’s office.
In the request, the comptroller’s office reported that “TEFA is the most successful year-one educational savings account program and already the second-largest ESA program in the country and has produced the nation’s longest school choice waiting list.”
“Tens of thousands more students have joined a growing interest list for the 2027-28 school year, signaling strong demand for continued growth,” noted the request for additional funding.
In May 2025, Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 2, which created the TEFA program.
The bill’s purpose is to “provide additional educational options to assist families in this state in exercising the right to direct the educational needs of their children.” It allots taxpayer money for parents to cover approved educational expenses, including private school tuition, tutoring, and online learning.
The program was originally awarded $1 billion for the 2026-2027 school year. The comptroller’s office has already allocated $270 million, giving $127 million to private school tuition and $36 million to educational products.
The new funding request reports “more than 60,000 students enrolled in a private school and receiving $10,474 each, 7,300 students with documented disabilities enrolled in a participating private school and receiving the above amount, plus an average of over $5,000 in additional Special Education funding.”
While the program has funded nearly 110,000 students, 106,000 students remain on waiting lists and 44,000 are considering participation in the 2027-2028 school year.
The rising demand is central to Huffines’ argument for the $2 billion budget request for the next two years.
According to Huffines, “Parents from every walk of life are demanding the power to direct their children’s education. Giving all parents the power to choose the right education for their child encourages schools to compete and deliver better results for all students.”
Huffines is not the only statewide official to call for increasing funding for the state’s new school choice program.
In a recent interview, Gov. Abbott said that, due to the high demand for the program in its inaugural year, lawmakers need to “step up and fund it even more.”
