Peachtree Corners, GA – Based on an official 2023 report issued by the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts (“DOAA”) and the Georgia GOAL Scholarship Program’s updated analysis of its K-12 scholarship award data, Georgia’s Qualified Education Expense (“QEE”) Credit Program generates an estimated annual net cost savings of $56.5 million for state and local taxpayers. This savings number, a result of GOAL’s detailed review of thousands of scholarships issued over the previous decade, is the best tangible evidence to-date of the fiscal benefit of the QEE Credit Program to the state.

The DOAA defines state fiscal impact as the total net change in state revenues and expenditures generated by the QEE Credit Program. A key determinant of the state fiscal impact is the so-called “switcher rate,” that is, the portion of the scholarship recipients who switched from public schools to private schools because they could access an SSO scholarship. This switcher rate is important, because when a student switches from a public school to a private school using a scholarship funded by donations made by taxpayers under the QEE Credit Program, the state and local education budget savings outweigh the foregone state tax revenue due to awarding Georgia income tax credits to the donating taxpayers. 

According to the DOAA Report, in 2021, if 67% of scholarship recipients were switchers, the state cost savings from them switching to private schools would completely offset the $81 million in foregone tax revenue from granting an income tax credit to Georgia taxpayers who contribute an SSO, while also saving local taxpayers $24.8 million. 

Using the DOAA report calculation model and GOAL’s scholarship data, GOAL confirmed the substantial state and local cost savings associated with the Georgia Education Expense Credit Program. By analyzing data on over thirteen thousand students who received GOAL scholarships during the ten-year period from 2015-2024, the switcher rate for GOAL scholarship recipients was 87%. This closely resembles the switcher rate found in empirical studies of other state scholarship programs, which have calculated a switcher rate of 90%. Using the DOAA Report model, this resulted in an estimated net annual state fiscal savings of $24.2 million, and an annual local savings of $32.2 million. 

GOAL believes this switcher rate and resulting savings to be extremely conservative, given that this analysis assumes that all homeschool students receiving an SSO scholarship (which significantly increased following the COVID-19 pandemic) are not “switchers” from public schools. It also does not take into consideration that the average state QBE public school expenditures per student increased from approximately $6,300 in fiscal year 2022 to $6,736 in 2023.

All students entering 2nd through 12th grade were evaluated for this analysis. As Georgia law does not require kindergarten or first grade students receiving Student Scholarship Organization (“SSO”) scholarships to have first spent any time in a public primary school, GOAL cannot ascertain whether they are “switchers” who, absent an SSO scholarship, would have attended a public school. Therefore, GOAL excluded them from its analysis of state and local cost savings. In any case, there is likely a similar switcher rate among this group, as the family income of 83% of these scholarship recipients was below 250% of the federal poverty level. Given their families’ modest incomes, it is highly unlikely these students would have attended private schools without GOAL scholarships.

“When the state and local cost savings are considered along with the positive impact of the QEE Program on student test scores, college attainment, and public benefits, a strong case is made for significantly increasing the annual $120 million cap, which is oversubscribed on the first business day of each year,” stated GOAL President and CEO Ben Saylor. “We will continue to support legislation that increases the amount of available credits and ensures the longevity of the program without putting thousands of existing students at risk with a sunset provision.”

The Georgia GOAL Scholarship Program is the state’s largest SSO operating under Georgia’s Education Expense Credit law. Since its inception, GOAL has awarded tens of thousands of scholarships to K-12 students, allowing families to choose the learning environment best suited for their children.