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NH EFA Program: Where Are Our Tax Dollars Going?
$60M+ to private, religious, and home schools this year alone.
What is the NH EFA Program?
The NH Educational Freedom Account (EFA) Program, also known as the NH school voucher program, allows families to take state education dollars and use them outside the public school system.
Families get an average of about $5,000 per child to spend on things like, private school tuition, homeschooling expenses, and online education programs.
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For the 2026-2027 school year, that amounts to $60M+ in taxpayer dollars.
School voucher money comes from New Hampshire’s Education Trust Fund, which is meant to help fund our local public schools. This money could instead be used to reduce local property taxes.
Why was this school voucher program created?
The voucher program was created under the guise of providing school choice for low-income families.
But our legislators, including our Republican Senator Keith Murphy and all of our Republican State Reps in Goffstown, voted to remove the income cap in 2025.
Now, your tax dollars can pay private school tuition and other educational expenses for a family making $50,000 a year—or $500,000.
Goffstown's Republican lawmakers repeatedly vote for costly vouchers
2021
HB2 Creates the NH EFA Program
Income cap: 300% of the Federal Poverty Level
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Supported by Goffstown State Reps:
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Joe Alexander
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Ross Berry
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2023
HB367 Expands Voucher Eligibility
Income cap: 350% of the Federal Poverty Level
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Sponsored by Goffstown Senator:
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Keith Murphy
Supported by Goffstown State Reps:
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Joe Alexander
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Ross Berry
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Lisa Mazur
2025
SB295 Eliminates Income Cap
Income cap: Unlimited
Sponsored by Goffstown Senator:
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Keith Murphy
Supported by Goffstown State Reps:
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​Joe Alexander​
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Ross Berry
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Henry Giasson
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Lisa Mazur
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Sherri Reinfurt
Your tax dollars are paying for ski vacations, horseback riding
Private and religious schools get one of the biggest chunks of EFA money ($11.5 million in the 2024-2025 school year). But the Concord Monitor revealed families using school voucher funds also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on activities, like...
Amazon Shopping
$1.4 million of online shopping at Amazon
Ski Passes
$46,000 at area ski mountains
Martial Arts
$35,000 at martial arts schools
Horseback Riding
$16,000 at equestrian facilities
Elite Sports Clubs
75 families spent ~$800 each on elite soccer clubs, sports training facilities, dance schools
Enrollment and costs keep growing
The NH EFA Program started small, but it didn't stay that way. For the 2026-27 school year, 12,500 students are participating, for a total of over $60 million.
That's more than Goffstown's entire yearly school budget!
And state law allows program enrollment to keep growing at a rate of 25% every year. At this rate, the NH Education Trust Fund could be paying for over 30,000 private school and homeschool students by 2030.
Goffstown public schools are still underfunded
This school voucher expansion is happening while communities across New Hampshire are struggling with the cost of public education. Goffstown has one of the lowest costs per pupil in the entire state, but too much of that cost falls on the backs of homeowners in the form of skyrocketing property taxes.
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At 50th in the nation (dead last!), the New Hampshire Supreme Court has ruled twice that our state's funding of public education is unconstitutionally low.
Instead of solving New Hampshire's longstanding school-funding problems, our Goffstown lawmakers have dramatically expanded a program that diverts our hard-earned tax dollars to private schools for wealthy families.
Candidates who will fight for public education
We deserve lawmakers who will support the public education ~89% of our kids rely on—and work for meaningful property tax relief. Vote for these Democratic candidates on September 8th and November 3rd.
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