The Freedom From Religion Foundation has sent a letter to all state governors urging them to opt their respective states out of the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit (FSTC) program, a nationwide voucher scheme approved in last summer’s reconciliation bill.

Passed as part of Congress’ “One Big Beautiful Bill” in 2025, the FSTC program is the first nationwide voucher program and could cost over $50 billion in tax dollars in funding for students in primarily religious private schools. Currently, as many as 27 states have announced their participation in the program, while only four — including FFRF’s home state of Wisconsin — have been confirmed to reject it.

To counter this program, FFRF’s lobbying arm, the FFRF Action Fund, earlier this month contacted its tens of thousands of advocates asking them to urge their governors not to opt into the program. 

The end result of scholarship granting organization donors “funneling taxpayer funds into private schools will be even more financial struggles for public schools in your state,” FFRF Anne Nicol Gaylor Legal Fellow Kyle J. Steinberg writes. 

FFRF points out that the FSTC program is a loss to the federal government because the federal government would have to reimburse Scholarship Granting Organization (SGO) donors through federal tax credits without collecting additional revenue. The dilution of federal dollars means that funds must be reallocated from other public services, which could cost states federal support for public education. 

Opting into the program allows third-party organizations to dictate the allocation of education funding in the state. While these organizations are technically authorized to award scholarships to private and public school students alike, the vast majority of permissible funding purposes — tuition, fees, books, room and board and uniforms — only apply to students of private institutions. Notably, these private institutions are not subject to anti-discrimination laws. In addition to segregating students along religious and other lines, this means that students who are most expensive to educate, such as those with disabilities, could simply be excluded from attending. 

Additionally, the beneficiaries of these funds are likely to be private religious schools. According to the most recently available data, 66 percent of U.S. private schools have a religious affiliation, and 77 percent of students enrolled in private schools attend one with a religious bent. In other words, opting into the FSTC program is a workaround that sends taxpayer dollars to fund religious education while eroding support for public schools, which educate 91 percent of U.S. children.

There is also an academic cost to pay for this program. Studies of voucher programs in three different states found that students attending private schools using vouchers performed worse academically than their public school counterparts. 

Finally, FFRF warns that the program will simply serve as a giveaway to wealthy families who do not need subsidies and as a windfall for wealthy donors who do not support public schools and are looking for a tax shelter. States with voucher programs have, in recent years, removed voucher eligibility guidelines entirely, moving to so-called “universal vouchers” that are available to even the wealthiest families who already send their children to private schools. It is reasonable to expect a similar expansion of this federal program in the future, leaving needy students even further behind. 

“The FSTC program is harmful to your state, its public education system, and its students,” concludes FFRF’s appeal to the nation’s governors. “By ignoring the very real costs of allowing third-party organizations such great control over education funding, your state’s public education system and student success are placed in jeopardy. We urge you to reject participation in this program for 2027 and each year thereafter.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With more than 41,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

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