Millions of products and services have flowed through Arizona's Empowerment Scholarship Account program, the state initiative that helps parents pay for private education or homeschooling. A new look at the program's purchasing data reveals where that money is going — and raises some questions about a portion of it.
The dataset covers 2.6 million separate transactions over a four-year period, totaling about $661 million. Of that, roughly $230 million — about 37% — was spent through the program's online marketplace.
Two-thirds of that marketplace spending, about $164 million, went to Amazon. Apple was second at nearly $19 million, followed by Outschool, an online learning platform, at $12 million. Staples and Lakeshore Learning Center rounded out the top five vendors.
An analysis of product descriptions across all marketplace purchases suggests that, on the surface, most of the spending aligns with the program's educational intent. About $60 million — a quarter of all marketplace spending — went toward computers and technology. Another $30 million went to online learning, $14 million to books, with other categories trailing from there.
But some transactions stand out.
The single priciest Amazon purchase included a high-end digital camera, professional lenses and a MacBook Pro — totaling nearly $11,000. The second-largest was a set of components to build a high-performance gaming PC, coming in at just under $10,000. One ESA account spent more than $9,000 on a complete electric guitar live setup, including a $2,500 guitar and a $1,300 amplifier.
Critics of the program have pointed to purchases like those as excessive. Guitars, specifically, illustrate the range. Among the data: a $3,600 Martin, a $3,100 Ibanez and two Taylor acoustics priced above $2,500.
At the same time, more than 1,500 guitars in the dataset were priced between $150 and $300 — closer to what you'd expect to see in a typical educational setting.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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