House committee advances Senate Bill 62 on education scholarships after hours of testimony; vote 13-4

Columbia Jan. 30, 2025

The House Education and Public Works Committee voted 13-4 on Thursday to report Senate Bill 62 favorably as amended, sending a revised framework for the Education Scholarship Trust Fund to the House calendar after more than four hours of testimony and committee debate.

The bill would re-establish the Education Scholarship Trust Fund (ESTF) under state statute and preserve several elements of the program the department ran last year: a scholarship worth $6,000 per pupil, a process for approving education service providers (schools, tutors and vendors), and a set of application windows and enrollment priorities. The committee adopted an early strike-all amendment and a separate provision specifying minimum qualifications for the ESTF trustee before approving the measure.

Why it matters: The ESTF is the legislature's main mechanism for sending public education funding to families who choose nonpublic K-12 services. Backers say it expands options for low-income and special-needs students; opponents say it risks diverting scarce state education dollars away from public schools and raises constitutional questions about public support for nongovernmental schools.

Department numbers and program design

Mika Childs, representing the South Carolina Department of Education, told the committee the department has already run the program and supplied data from the pilot year. Childs said nearly 8,000 families applied for 5,000 slots last year and the state enrolled roughly 3,000 students; roughly 1,700 participants had already submitted renewals for the next school year when she spoke. "There is high demand for the educational freedoms the ESTF programor K-12 scholarship represent. It's popular among its existing participants, and applications continue to exceed available slots," Childs said.

Childs summarized participation and spending patterns: about 80% of participants met Medicaid eligibility, roughly 60% were elementary-aged, about half identified as African-American, and only about 6% were military-affiliated. Department officials said about half the program dollars were spent through a marketplace for goods and services (computers, tutoring, therapies and supplies); the…