Texas-sized Enrollment Numbers

More than 42,000 students applied for Texas Education Freedom Accounts on day one

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Applications opened for the new Texas Education Freedom Accounts program last week on February 4th. In just that first day, more than 42,000 students applied for the program. Yesterday morning, the Comptroller’s office reported that over 74,000 applications had been completed.

As reported by the Texas Comptroller, about one-third of the first day applications came from households with income below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. Overall, three-fourths of the applications so far fall into the program’s top priority groups based on family income and student disability status.

The report also states that 42,000 is a record-breaking number of first-day applicants for a new school choice program in the U.S. That record was previously held by Tennessee, with 33,000 day-one applicants in 2025.

Drawing a comparison to Tennessee may be apt. Tennessee’s Education Freedom Scholarship program launched just last year, providing universal eligibility for every K-12 student in the state and safeguards to prioritize low-income students. Another striking similarity is that both programs are capped, limiting the number of students who can actually participate.

This past year, Tennessee’s program was capped at 20,000 students. So, while 42,827 students applied for the program, about half of that number received a scholarship. (Notably, the program has an escalator provision to increase the number of scholarships if demand is high.)

Texas could face a similar challenge. All K-12 students in Texas are eligible to apply, but the funding for the program is currently capped at $1 billion. Current funding could provide up to 90,000 scholarships—but that may not be sufficient to satisfy demand, given that the program received 42,000 applicants in just one day.

Texas is also the most populous state to enact a school choice program, making this pilot year an especially unique trial run. If Texas fills all 90,000 possible scholarship spots, it would be the sixth largest choice program country in its first year.

Florida offers the closest comparison in terms of population. In 2025-26, Florida’s Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options had 280,611 participating students. Another 140,147 students participated in the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities program. If Texas expands its ESA funding, it could easily exceed those participation numbers in the future.

Interest in Florida’s ESAs also surged last week. In the first two days of the application window, over 120,000 students applied for K-12 scholarships through the Step Up For Students portal, according to Central Florida Public Media. That’s double the number of applications compared to the same time last year.

Only two months in, 2026 is shaping up to be a year to watch for rapidly expanding choice programs.