Iowa School Choice

by Cami Koons, Iowa Capital Dispatch
June 17, 2026

Nearly 79% of students who used Iowa’s funding program for K-12 private schools were “already projected” to attend private schools, according to a report released Wednesday by Iowa Auditor Rob Sand. 

Iowa Department of Education called the report a “policy advocacy brief” that critiqued statutory provisions of the Iowa Education Savings Account (ESA) program.

Iowa’s ESA program provides funding to students to use on tuition and associated costs at private schools and had an estimated appropriation of $329.6 million for fiscal year 2026, according to the Legislative Services Agency. The auditor’s report said this means the state paid roughly $38,000, per student for the 20% of ESA program users who were not already projected to attend private schools. 

“The program itself, though, is still paying tuition for the wealthiest families in the state of Iowa, who can barely even feel the check that they write, and a lot of people who don’t mind doing it at all,” Sand said in a news conference Wednesday.