Two thousand new students applied to New Hampshire’s Education Freedom Account program during the program’s first week without an income eligibility cap, according to the program’s administrator.

The total is equal to roughly 40% of enrollment in the program at the start of the 2024-25 school year and suggests the state could hit – or even ultimately exceed – the 10,000-student limit set by the new law for the first year of the expansion.

“We saw a flurry of interest from families all expressing extreme gratitude in the days immediately following the bill signing,” program administrator Kate Baker Demers wrote to the Monitor.

Baker Demers, the director of a company called the Children’s Scholarship Fund that the state contracts to run the program, predicted the surge of applications would slow in the coming weeks prior to the July 15 enrollment deadline. She projected that, at the start of the upcoming school year, enrollment would reach about 8,500 students, up from 5,321 last September.

The expanded program, which Gov. Ayotte signed into law on June 10, provides families who don’t send their children to public schools at least $4,265 per child in government money to allocate towards private school tuition or other educational expenses. Previously, the state capped eligibility for the program at 350% of the federal poverty guidelines – $112,525 a year for a family of four.

The early application numbers come as state lawmakers finalize a budget for the next two fiscal years. The legislature has allocated $39.3 million to the program for next year in its proposed budget finalized this week, an increase from $27.7 million this year.

The 2,000-student enrollment spike already represents roughly $9 million in spending, assuming students receive an average of $4,500.

If 8,500 students enroll, as Baker Demers projected, the program would cost roughly $38.3 million next year. If 10,000 students enroll, it would cost $45 million. The average award depends on how many students qualify for certain types of additional money on the basis of receiving free or reduced lunch, having a special education need or being classified as an English-language learner. The current average award is $5,204 but is expected to decrease as fewer new students qualify for free or reduced lunch.

Supporters and opponents of the program spent months wrangling over how much removing income restrictions would cause it to grow. Concerns about cost led to proponents downplaying the anticipated rate of growth while opponents sounded the alarm that every student who didn’t attend public school could theoretically enroll.

Drew Cline, a supporter of the program who leads a free-market think tank called the Josiah Bartlett Center, said in an interview Wednesday that he was “a little bit surprised” by the rate of growth.

“I think that’s probably an artifact of the news coverage and of the marketing,” said Cline, who also serves as the chair of the state Board of Education. “Somebody’s been marketing this and doing radio ads and social media ads to encourage people to enroll, so I think those two factors really explain a large part of the surge.”

The Josiah Bartlett Center published an analysis in March projecting 4,792 new students would enroll in the first year of a universal program, an estimate that Cline said he stood by based on the first week of enrollment numbers.

In contrast to Cline, Nicole Heimarck, the executive director of public education policy organization Reaching Higher NH, said the initial application rate “does not come as a surprise.”

“As early as January, Reaching Higher released a fiscal analysis detailing the potential impact of universal eligibility and what that impact would be on the Granite State,” she said. “And that modeling very clearly demonstrated that universal vouchers could cost the state over $100 million.”

Baker Demers said she didn’t have any data yet on what portion of the new applicants came from families with incomes above the old cap or on what percentage would be coming from public school versus from private or home school.

That percentage is significant because the program reroutes funding from the public school to the family when a student leaves, while it is additional state spending when the student is already receiving their education elsewhere. In 2024, 32% of new participating students came directly from public schools, according to data from the Department of Education.

The 10,000-student cap is not the only number to pay attention to between now and the July 15 deadline. If enrollment reaches 9,000 – 90% of the current cap – the cap will increase to 12,500 students next year, according to the law.

Even if the cap is reached this summer, the law allows those who fall into four “priority” groups – current enrollees, siblings of those enrolled, those with disabilities and those whose family income falls below the previous threshold – to continue enrolling during the school year. Families who enroll after the July deadline will only receive a portion of the money for the year.

Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at jmargolis@cmonitor.com.