A few blocks from the Capitol, in two days of hearings earlier this month, the man who runs the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program gave the Senate Education Committee a set of numbers that explain why so many Austin families are still waiting. More than 116,000 students are participating. More than 95,000 are on the waitlist. Another 65,000 have signed up on an interest list to apply next year.
Travis Pillow, the interim director of the TEFA program in Comptroller Don Huffines' office, told the committee that TEFA is "the largest and most successful year-one school choice launch in U.S. History and the second largest education savings account program in the nation." That is his characterization. The numbers underneath it are the part Central Texas parents should write down, because they describe a queue roughly as large as the program itself.
Why the hearing matters more than the usual interim hearing
The committee, chaired by Senator Donna Campbell, took testimony on public school enrollment, educator misconduct, instructional calendars and four-day weeks, school choice, foreign influence in districts, and library books. Interim hearings do not change law. They are where committees gather testimony, evaluate how a statute is working and decide what to recommend when the Legislature convenes in January 2027 for the 90th session.
For a program in its first year, that is the moment the design gets revisited. Senate Bill 2 created TEFA in 2025 with $1 billion for the biennium. The waitlist figure Pillow gave the committee is the single most consequential number in the room, because the only way to clear a 95,000-student queue is a larger appropriation, and appropriations are written in session.
What the hearing did not produce is a decision. No funding level was set, no eligibility rule was rewritten, and nothing a witness recommended is now policy. If you read a confident account this autumn of what TEFA will look like in 2027-28, check whether it is describing a charge to study something or somebody's prediction.
What the waiting looks like in Central Texas
The program's demographic report dated August 1, 2026 gives the district-level picture. Austin ISD finished with 1,020 funded students. Leander ISD came in at 574, Round Rock ISD at 544, Hays CISD at 441, Georgetown ISD at 432, Pflugerville ISD at 329, Hutto ISD at 214, Bastrop ISD at 188, Lake Travis ISD at 171, San Marcos CISD at 165, Dripping Springs ISD at 139, Del Valle ISD at 102, Lockhart ISD at 82 and Eanes ISD at 38. Across those fourteen districts, roughly 4,400 Central Texas students were funded in year one.
Set that against a statewide waitlist of 95,000 and the shape of the problem is clear enough: in this metro, being eligible and being funded were two different things for most applicants. Our guide to how the program works in Austin walks through the tiers that decided who got in, and the Williamson County guide covers the northern suburbs separately, since Round Rock, Leander, Georgetown and Hutto behaved quite differently from Travis County.
The rules that will decide your next application
Three mechanics are worth knowing before the 2027-28 window opens, and none of them depend on what the Legislature does.
Awards are not first come, first served. If eligible applicants exceed available funding, a lottery decides placement. Arriving at 8:01 a.m. on the opening day buys you nothing.
The priority order changes in year two. For 2026-27 the tiers ran: children with a disability in households at or below 500 percent of the federal poverty guidelines, then households at or below 200 percent, then households between 200 and 500 percent, then households at or above 500 percent, with that last group capped at 20 percent of the money appropriated for the year. For the second year, the stated order is siblings of participating children first, then new eligible applicants, then prior participants who left for a public or charter school. If you have one child in and one child out, that sibling line is the most valuable sentence on this page.
And the interest list is not the application. The 65,000 figure Pillow cited is people who asked to be told when the window opens. The Comptroller has not announced the 2027-28 application dates; the program's families page says only that families can sign up for updates. Joining costs nothing and is the only way to hear about the window on the day it opens rather than a week in.
What else came out of those two days
Two items from the same hearings are worth a glance even though they are not TEFA. Commissioner Mike Morath told the committee that the average instructional calendar has fallen to 169 days from 180, and that 15 percent of schools now run fewer than 165 days. And Levi Fuller, TEA's inspector general for educator misconduct, said reports have tripled and his office needs more staff.
Both bear on the comparison a lot of Austin parents are actually making, which is not public versus private in the abstract but this campus versus that one, measured in days of instruction and in who is standing in front of the room. A private school in the TEFA program sets its own calendar and must annually give a nationally norm-referenced assessment to students in grades 3 through 12, which is a thinner accountability regime than a public district's but a more comparable one than it used to be. Of the 327 private schools this site tracks across Travis, Williamson, Hays, Bastrop and Caldwell counties, 240 appear in the state's TEFA finder.
What to do between now and January
If you are waitlisted, nothing in this month's hearing changes your position, and no announcement has moved the queue. Join the interest list if you are not on it, confirm which tier you fell into, and check whether a sibling rule will apply to you next spring.
If you are funded, the practical date in front of you is February 1, when private school students receive the remaining 50 percent of the award. The program overview has the installment schedule and the rollover rule, which lets unspent money carry to the next year as long as your child stays in the program. That rollover is worth more than it sounds in a year when the Legislature is deciding how many families come in behind you.
Sources
- The Texas Voice - Senate Education Committee Prepares for Next Legislative Session (Oct. 15, 2026: two days of interim hearings, Sen. Donna Campbell, testimony of Travis Pillow, participation and waitlist figures, Morath and Fuller testimony)
- Texas Education Freedom Accounts - Families (lottery, year-one and year-two priority order, sibling rule, interest list, rollover)
- Texas Education Freedom Accounts - Home (Senate Bill 2 and the $1 billion appropriation, installment schedule, private school assessment requirement)
- Texas Education Freedom Accounts - Annual Demographic Report, August 1, 2026 (funded accounts by school district)