More Than $49 Million in Inactive ESA Accounts as Total Unspent Funds Soar to $444 Million

23 inactive accounts have around or more than $100,000.

Students on the ESA program are split up between disability or non-disability (universal expansion) as well as active or inactive accounts.

New records from the Arizona Department of Education reveal that $444 million in taxpayer money is sitting unused in Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) — a sharp increase from previous years and a troubling sign of limited transparency and oversight in the state’s universal school voucher program.

The dataset, current through May 29, 2025, shows:

• 254,37 ESA accounts (22%) are inactive, holding a combined $49.5 million

• 192 accounts exceed $100,000, with the largest single balance topping $261,159

  • A 143% increase in two years.

  • There are 803 ESA accounts with balances between $50,000 and $100,000, up from 617.

• 10,278 accounts have balances over $10,000

• There are 117,334 ESA accounts, which is a 95% increase from 2023.

  • The program has nearly doubled in two years, but the account balances are up 143% over that same time.

• Total funds unspent across all active and inactive accounts: $444,293,700

• The number of ESA accounts with less than $1 also nearly doubled from 16,802 in 2023 to 33,813 in 2025, while accounts with under $1,000 grew from about 31,000 to over 58,000, with their combined balance rising from $4.9 million to $8.45 million in just two years.

$175 million from Arizona taxpayers are just sitting in ESA accounts