With applications for Utah’s school voucher program due in about a week — and scholarships for the 2025–26 school year set to go out by the end of May —thousands of families now face uncertainty over whether the program will survive a judge’s ruling that deemed it unconstitutional.
Utah 3rd District Court Judge Laura Scott ruled Friday that the “Utah Fits All” program violates Utah’s constitution, raising immediate questions about whether the state can continue offering the scholarships while the case is appealed — a step Gov. Spencer Cox, a named defendant, said Friday the state intends to take.
What happens next remains unclear, but more information could come after a status conference scheduled for Wednesday at 2 p.m., Scott told The Salt Lake Tribune.
Rep. Candice Pierucci, R-Herriman, who sponsored the bill that created Utah Fits All as well as a recent bill that made significant changes to the program, also told The Tribune that the state will have more clarity after Wednesday’s conference.
Scott’s ruling sided with the Utah Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, which filed its lawsuit nearly a year ago. The union alleged the program violated the Utah Constitution by using income tax dollars — reserved for public education, higher education, and services for people with disabilities — to fund private and home-based education.
Scott agreed, saying the program improperly redirects public education funds to private institutions that don’t meet the same access or accountability standards.
Attorneys for families to ask judge to pause ruling
Attorney Arif Panju, with the Institute for Justice, is representing two parents who joined the case as intervenors. He said they will ask Scott on Wednesday to stay her ruling.
“In other words,” Panju told The Tribune, “[don’t] issue an injunction that prevents thousands of Utah families from accessing the educational options they rely on now — and plan to use in the coming school year.”
Panju said many parents — including Maria Ruiz, whom he represents — have come to depend on the program.
Ruiz is the sole provider for her family while her husband deals with health issues, Panju said, adding that the scholarship helps the family afford a private school they feel best fits their children.
“The judge’s ruling puts their education — the Ruiz children and 10,000 more in Utah — in flux,” Panju said. “There’s nothing in the Constitution that restricts the Legislature from creating additional educational options, but the judge created one out of thin air that doesn’t exist in the education clause. We insist that the ruling be suspended until the Utah Supreme Court gets a chance to review this.”
Why the judge determined Utah Fits All is unconstitutional
Scott’s ruling relied on two sections of the Utah Constitution: Article X, which requires public education to be free from “sectarian control,” and Article XIII, which earmarks income tax revenue for public education, higher education and services for people with disabilities.
Attorneys for Cox and then-Attorney General Sean Reyes argued in their July 2024 motion to dismiss the case that the voucher program did not prevent the state from fulfilling its obligation to provide Utah students with a “free and appropriate public education.”
“Nothing in the statute that creates the UFA Scholarship Program states or implies that funding for the Program will be taken from funds that would otherwise be appropriated to fund the public education system,” the motion stated.
However, the judge ruled that because the Legislature is funding the program with income tax dollars, the funds remain beholden to Article X’s requirements.
The ruling also stated that while public schools are required to accept all students, private schools and other providers participating in the voucher program can impose admissions criteria — making the program incompatible with constitutional mandates.
The judge also rejected the state’s argument that the program is outside the public education system and thus not subject to Article X. While the Legislature has some authority over education programs, Scott wrote in her ruling, its authority does not extend to creating a publicly funded education system that sidesteps constitutional protections.
Simply labeling it a separate program, the judge ruled, doesn’t make it exempt from the laws that apply to all public education.
Voucher proponents call ruling a ‘temporary setback’
Proponents of the program quickly pushed back Friday, after the ruling was announced.
Robyn Bagley, executive director of Utah Education Fits All — a nonprofit advocacy group that supports the program — called the ruling a “temporary setback” and urged the judge to allow scholarships to continue during the appeal.
“Utah’s program stands as one of the many successful examples of universal school choice programs being passed and upheld around the country as parents insist on taking central roles in directing an education that aligns with their values, expectations and their children’s unique needs,” Bagley wrote in a statement.
The group, which adds the word “education” to the name of the state scholarship program, initially created confusion on its website, claiming as early as summer 2023 that families could “preapply” for the state voucher program via an online form before the application portal was live.
The Libertas Institute, a conservative think tank, called the judge’s ruling ”constitutionally murky” and said it undermines “parents’ right to choose the best education for their children.”
“We hope that the [Supreme] Court acts quickly to overturn this decision — not only to restore educational freedom in Utah, but to ensure continuity in learning for the thousands of students whose futures now hang in the balance,” the institute wrote in a statement issued late Friday.
Vouchers set for an overhaul this year
The Republican-dominated Legislature passed HB215 in 2023, creating the “Utah Fits All Scholarship” voucher program, despite opposition from teachers and nearly every education organization in Utah.
Initially, the state allocated $42 million for the program starting in the 2024-25 school year — enough funding for about 5,000 students to each receive the allotted $8,000 share/scholarship. In February 2024, lawmakers injected another $40 million into the pot, raising the number of available scholarships to 10,000.
Lawmakers injected another 25% funding boost this legislative session, raising total state spending to more than $100 million.
The increase comes amid sweeping changes to the program, which has yet to complete its first full year of implementation.
Last year, all 10,000 recipients received an $8,000 scholarship, regardless of they were homeschooled or attended private school. The main rule: In order to receive the voucher money, students cannot be enrolled in public school full time.
The scholarship could then be spent on a range of “educational expenses,” including private school tuition, tutoring, homeschooling expenses and even entirely on extracurricular activities, such as violin or swim lessons.
That will change next academic year: There will be new limits on spending for certain extracurriculars — as well as varying scholarship amounts, depending on a student’s age and whether they are homeschooled.
Homeschoolers age 5-11 will receive a $4,000 scholarship, for example, and homeschoolers age 12-18 will qualify for $6,000. Students attending private schools still will receive the full $8,000, regardless of age.
This means the more than $100 million in taxpayer-backed scholarships — if the judge had allowed them — could be spread across more recipients. Last year, 80% of voucher recipients were homeschooled, lawmakers have said.
Applications for the Utah Fits All scholarship opened to renewing applicants on Jan. 21 and to new applicants on March 3. Families can continue to apply through the Utah Fits All website until the portal closes May 1, a week from Thursday.