Senate Bill 2 created the Education Savings Accounts program to subsidize education-related costs for children to attend private school or participate in homeschooling programs. Ahead of its application period opening Feb. 4, University of Houston researchers surveyed SPACE City Panel participants to get their perceptions of the program. (Credit Getty Images)
Key Takeaways
- Houston-area residents significantly overestimate the size of Texas’ new Education Savings Accounts program, expecting far more students to receive vouchers than the program’s $1 billion cap allows, a new report from the University of Houston shows.
- Survey respondents believe a much larger share of ESA funds will go to higher-income and private-school families than permitted under Senate Bill 2’s eligibility limits and prioritization rules.
- Despite fears of widespread harm to public schools, UH researchers say the program is likely to result in only modest enrollment declines for public schools next year, even if all available vouchers are used.
Many Houston-area residents overestimate the scope of the state’s new Education Savings Accounts program and believe funds will disproportionately benefit higher-income families, despite guardrails in the legislation, according to a new report from the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs.
Part of the recurring SPACE City Panel from the Center for Public Policy, the survey offers a snapshot of Houston-area perceptions of ESAs, also known as private school vouchers. Respondents were surveyed prior to the Texas Education Agency opening ESA applications on Feb. 4 for the 2026-27 school year.
Senate Bill 2, approved by lawmakers during the 2025 legislative session, created a $1 billion program to subsidize education-related costs for children to attend private school or participate in homeschooling programs. While public debate often suggests vouchers will prompt a mass exodus from public schools and undermine school funding, UH researchers said those fears are overstated, at least in the short-term.
“Both voucher opponents and voucher advocates are going to be surprised by the way SB 2 is actually going to influence public school enrollments, private school attendance and the amount of money that's available for families who want to send their kids to private school next year,” said Blake Heller, lead author on the report and assistant professor at the Hobby School.
What the Results Show
Survey results indicate respondents held several misconceptions about the program, including how many students could receive subsidies and how much funding would flow to higher-income families.
Houston-area respondents believe 35.3% of public-school students will apply for an ESA and that 28.3% will ultimately receive one — an estimate that would equate to more than 1.5 million students leaving public schools for private schools this fall. In reality, the standard ESA allotment is a minimum of $10,474 per student, meaning the $1 billion program can subsidize private schooling for at most 95,474 students.
That represents roughly 1.7% of Texas’ 5.5 million public school students. Even if every voucher were used by a current public school student, Heller predicts the program would result in an enrollment decline of about 1%-2% for most districts, with only a few experiencing losses as high as 5%.
“To be clear, SB 2’s subsidies for private schooling will come at the expense of Texas public schools,” says Maria P. Pérez Argüelles, a report co-author and research assistant professor at the Hobby School. “However, the modest scale of the program will limit the short-term budgetary impacts during the 2026-27 school year. The fiscal doomsday scenarios voucher opponents fear most would require a substantial increase in appropriations during a future legislative cycle, a choice that lawmakers could debate as early as 2027.”
Another common misconception involved who is eligible to receive subsidies. SB 2 prioritizes students with disabilities from low- to middle-income families, followed by students from low- to lower-middle-income families, middle-income families and finally higher-income families. Among students from higher-income families, current public school students are also prioritized ahead of those already enrolled in private schools.
Despite those provisions, respondents estimated 38.2% of children receiving SB 2 funding would come from high-income families earning at least five times the federal poverty line — just over $160,000 for a family of four. That estimate is nearly double the bill’s statutory maximum requiring that no more than 20% of funding may be allocated to students from higher-income families.
While most Houston-area parents (58.7%) said they didn’t plan to apply for a voucher, 41.2% said they either planned to apply or were unsure. If the program reaches its roughly 100,000-student capacity, many high-income families and families with children already enrolled in private schools will not receive a voucher, Heller said.
“The priority groups are really likely to come into play,” Heller said. “A lot of families who anticipated getting a pretty big subsidy for their students to attend private school may have hard choices to make in the fall about their plans.”
Other key findings include:
- Respondents believe that 33.9% of vouchers — the second-highest share — will go to families earning between two and five times the federal poverty level ($64,300 and $160,750 for a family of four).
- Respondents believe current private school students will receive the largest share of the vouchers (39.4%), followed by public school students (37.7%). They expect suburban students to receive 44.8% of vouchers, compared with 37.4% for urban students and 20.5% for rural students.
- Respondents estimate that 29.4% of special education students and 31.2% of students receiving English language supports will receive SB 2 subsidies.
- Respondents were more than twice as likely to agree that ESAs will hurt Texas public schools (47.9%) than to disagree (21.6%). At the same time, 41.1% believe ESAs will give students access to better educational opportunities, compared to 32.3% who believe they will not.
Respondents were also divided on the future of the program: 34.5% believe ESA access should be expanded, 36.6% believe it should be limited and 36.7% believe it should be eliminated.
“What the survey captures is a real split between respondents who believe ESAs could give students access to better educational opportunities and those who are concerned about ESAs hurting Texas public schools,” said Agustín Vallejo, a report co-author and research assistant professor at the Hobby School. “People are weighing potential benefits for individual students and households against concerns about what those choices could mean for public schools and communities.”
The report concludes by recommending lawmakers proceed cautiously when deciding whether to extend or expand ESAs during the 2027 legislative session. Heller said the state should allow three to five years for researchers to evaluate the program’s real-world effects on students, schools and communities. Decisions about expansion, he said, should be based on evidence of long-term costs and benefits — not early implementation challenges or raw parent demand.
“Once we understand how the voucher program is influencing students and communities in its current iteration, we can make an informed decision about whether and how to expand, maintain or sunset the program,” Heller said. “I think that's the prudent course of action based on what’s happened in other states.”
The full report is available on the Hobby School website. The survey was conducted between December and January. Future reports for this quarter will cover campaign finances and perceptions of Chicago and Houston.