More than 1,200 of the roughly 3,000 South Carolina students who received school vouchers last school year later withdrew or were removed from the taxpayer-funded program due to eligibility concerns, according to state Department of Education data.

One of the eligibility requirements was enrollment outside one’s local school district. All of the recipients who were removed from the program due to enrollment verification had been enrolled in their zoned public school district.

The 1,229 suspended participants, all of whom had already received at least one $1,500 scholarship payment, left the program. The state did not recoup the money.

Launched in 2023, South Carolina’s school voucher program publicly subsidized low- and middle-income families that send their K–12 children to private schools or public schools outside their residence area. Soon after the start of the 2024–25 school year, the state Supreme Court invalidated the portion of the law that allowed using vouchers for private schools.

The State, Oct. 7