Hope Scholarship Legislation Concerns School Choice Supporters 

Advocates of the state’s school voucher program are alarmed by a bill proposed in committee Wednesday. 

The House Finance Committee originated a bill that would place limits on the Hope Scholarship program.

The program provides financial assistance to qualifying families of K-12 students to be used for tuition, homeschool curriculum and other approved educational expenses.

The amount awarded to each student currently increases annually with the state school aid formula, but the legislation proposed on Wednesday would separate the award from the formula and cap it at its current amount of $5,250 dollars per child per year. The projected scholarship amount for the 2026-2027 school year under the existing statutory language is $5,435.62.

The bill would also significantly restrict how the money can be spent and block the Hope Scholarship board from approving other qualified expenses beyond what is already in statute. 

In a press release, State Treasurer and Hope Scholarship Board Chairman Larry Pack expressed disappointment and concern the legislature is introducing confusion two weeks before scholarship applications open.

“These policy decisions will only produce negative effects for our Hope families, and we are urging lawmakers to reconsider,” Pack said. “Actions within both bodies are especially troubling because we are seeing these changes less than two weeks out from universal expansion. We believe it is inappropriate, at this time, to push for such drastic deviations and welcome additional discussions down the road on the future of the program.” 

The Cardinal Institute, which was a key stakeholder in getting the Hope Scholarship passed in 2021, also released a statement expressing “serious concern” regarding the proposed changes.

“The Hope Scholarship was created as a remedy for systemic failure, not an extension of it,” Tiffany Hoben, director of Education Partnerships & Strategy at the Cardinal Institute said. “Families seeking targeted remediation and relief from inadequate special education services should not be subjected to new layers of state control that mirror the system they are leaving. These restrictions are deliberately harmful to vulnerable students and fundamentally incompatible with a parent-directed program. They undermine choice, restrict flexibility, and betray the original purpose of the legislation.”

Currently students must be enrolled in public school for at least 45 days to be approved for the Hope Scholarship. The award is set to expand its eligibility to every school-aged child in West Virginia this fall, regardless of enrollment status, with an expected cost of $230 million. The program received a total of $120 million in appropriations from the state legislature this year and is expected to more than double its participation over last year.