The New School Choice Map: Is Your State Participating in the Federal Tuition Tax Credit?

The federal government now offers a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for donations to private school scholarship funds — and whether your family can access those scholarships depends entirely on whether your state chose to participate. Twenty-seven states submitted opt-in paperwork to the IRS by April 15, 2026. Five declined. Kentucky landed in the participating column only after a dramatic veto override. New York may become the 29th state, with Governor Hochul signaling intent in May 2026. For the first time in American education policy, a federal school choice mechanism is dividing states not just by party but by institution — and the lines don’t fall exactly where you’d expect.

What Section 25F Actually Does

The Federal Scholarship Tax Credit, codified at Section 25F of the Internal Revenue Code, offers donors a federal tax credit equal to 100% of contributions made to approved Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs). SGOs are nonprofits that distribute funds directly to families for private school tuition.

The credit is federal. But states control the pipeline. Before a family in any given state can receive an FSTC-funded scholarship, their state must:

1. File IRS Form 15714 — the Advance Election to Participate Under Section 25F — with a window that opened January 1, 2026.
2. Submit a list of state-approved SGOs eligible to receive credited donations.

A donor in a non-participating state can still claim the federal credit by giving to an SGO in a participating state. But the scholarship money flows to families in participating states. If your state hasn’t opted in, FSTC dollars aren’t reaching students in your district.

The Three-Bucket Map

As of mid-May 2026, states fall into three groups.

Participating (27 confirmed, 2 announced): The IRS April 15, 2026 fact sheet listed Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Kentucky subsequently became a participating state after a legislative override. New York announced intent in May 2026 but had not yet formally filed as of publication.

Declined or vetoed: Arizona, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oregon, and Wisconsin.

Pending or ambiguous: A small number of states have not made public announcements in either direction.

Who Moved First — and Why It Matters

Virginia filed Form 15714 on January 9, 2026 — nine days after the opt-in window opened. Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) submitted alongside a list of twelve approved SGOs. Virginia’s early filing positions families there to access scholarship dollars at program launch. Youngkin left office on January 17, just eight days after filing. His successor, Governor Abigail Spanberger (D), has not moved to rescind the opt-in.

Mississippi followed on January 19, Georgia on January 20. Idaho and Montana filed in January as well. These five states have the longest runway to build out SGO infrastructure before 2027 scholarships flow.

For families researching schools in Virginia, Georgia, or Texas, participating status means SGOs in your state are already building scholarship pipelines. The practical question — which SGOs are approved, how large are their scholarship pools, what income thresholds apply — varies by state and by each SGO’s mission.

The Partisan Pattern — With Exceptions

The honest read of the data: Republican-led states moved fast. Democratic-led states mostly declined or stalled.

Of the 27 states confirmed by the April 15 IRS fact sheet, most are led by Republican governors. The five states that formally declined — Arizona, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oregon, and Wisconsin — are led by Democratic governors. Arizona’s Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed an opt-in bill on January 16, 2026, one week after Virginia filed. Wisconsin’s Governor Tony Evers declined to submit. New Mexico and Oregon declined without formal veto action.

That pattern holds — until you look at Kentucky and New York.

Kentucky: The Veto Override

Governor Andy Beshear (D) vetoed Kentucky’s opt-in legislation. The Kentucky General Assembly overrode that veto, requiring supermajority support in both chambers. Kentucky is now a participating state.

The override is the clearest data point in this cycle that the FSTC debate doesn’t end with a governor’s veto. Legislative coalitions can force participation even against executive resistance. Families in Louisville and Lexington who were researching private school options now have access to FSTC scholarship pathways that didn’t exist six months ago. Whether those pathways become meaningful depends on how quickly Kentucky-approved SGOs scale their donor outreach and award pools.

New York: The Democratic Outlier

In May 2026, Governor Kathy Hochul (D) announced New York’s intent to opt in. That would make New York only the second Democratic-governor state — after Kentucky via legislative override — to formally participate.

New York’s entry matters beyond its political symbolism. New York is home to some of the country’s largest urban Catholic school systems, substantial Orthodox Jewish day school enrollment, and a persistent affordability gap for working-class families who want private options. A well-funded SGO ecosystem in New York could route scholarship dollars to families in New York City, Buffalo, and Rochester who currently have no FSTC pathway.

As of this writing, New York had announced intent but not yet filed Form 15714. The IRS’s updated participant list will confirm formal participation when it publishes.

What This Means for Families in Non-Participating States

If you live in Arizona, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oregon, or Wisconsin, FSTC scholarships do not currently fund private school tuition for your children. Three practical points:

The credit still exists for donors. A donor in Oregon can give to an approved SGO in Texas and claim the federal credit. The scholarship money goes to Texas families. This matters for philanthropic planning, not family planning.

State programs are separate. Many non-participating states have their own scholarship programs — education savings accounts, state-level SGOs, voucher programs — that operate independently of Section 25F. Arizona, notably, has the nation’s most expansive education savings account program. Governor Hobbs’s FSTC veto doesn’t affect that.

The policy window remains open. States can submit Form 15714 for subsequent years. Legislative dynamics shift. North Carolina’s governor vetoed opt-in, but the legislature may revisit.

What Opting In Actually Delivers

Participation creates a framework, not a guarantee. Families in participating states still need to identify an approved SGO, apply for a scholarship, meet that SGO’s eligibility requirements, and find a private school with available seats.

Scholarship amounts aren’t standardized federally. Each SGO sets its own award levels based on how much donor capital flows in. In states like Florida — which has mature SGO infrastructure from years of its own scholarship programs — the transition to FSTC-backed funding is relatively smooth. In states that never had SGO ecosystems, 2027 scholarship amounts may be modest while organizations scale.

The FSTC changes the financial equation for private school. It doesn’t change the underlying quality data for public schools. A high-performing public school district in your area may still be the best educational and financial decision — and the performance data for every public school in the country is what MySchoolScout is built to surface.

The States Still Resolving

Alaska and several other states on the IRS list appeared in announced-intent categories rather than fully processed Form 15714 filings as of mid-May 2026. States that have submitted their SGO lists are furthest ahead in building scholarship infrastructure. States that have announced intent but not yet filed are still ahead of states that have declined.

Louisiana, with historically strong Catholic school enrollment, opted in — consistent with the state’s long engagement with private school policy. Nebraska and West Virginia, both red-state opt-ins with active legislative school choice coalitions, filed without drama.

Next Steps: Research Schools in Your State

Whether you’re weighing private school scholarship options or comparing public school districts, the underlying question is the same: what does the school performance landscape look like where you live?

MySchoolScout’s state pages let you filter public schools by academic performance, growth trajectories, and equity indicators — the data that tells you whether a school is improving and for which students. If your state participates in the FSTC, private school becomes a more realistic financial option. But public school data gives you the baseline for any comparison.

• Texas schools — participating, large SGO ecosystem expected
• Florida schools — participating, existing SGO infrastructure from state scholarship programs
• Virginia schools — earliest Form 15714 filer, 12 approved SGOs listed at launch
• Georgia schools — filed January 20, 2026
• New York schools — intent announced May 2026, formal filing pending

For any state on this list, public school comparison data is live now. Private school scholarship availability in 2027 depends on how each state’s SGO ecosystem develops. Check the IRS’s participant registry as it updates — and use MySchoolScout to track the public school options available to your family today, regardless of how the scholarship landscape resolves.