CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The Hope Scholarship Program’s annual report shows over 10,000 total scholarships were awarded during the 2024-2025 academic year, compared to the prior year’s 5,400.
The Hope Scholarship offers financial assistance to qualifying k-12 students in the state that can be used for private school tuition, homeschool curriculum, books, supplies, and other expenses.
State treasurer and chairman of the Hope Scholarship Board Larry Pack says this detailed report is available for anyone to look through.
“It’s taxpayer money. Everybody needs to be able to see exactly where the money is coming from, who it’s going to and which counties have HOPE students and how many,” Pack said on MetroNews Talkline. “We work really hard on the transparency thing. We think it’s really important for the legislature, the governor, anyone in state government, along with public education and the public to have this information.”
Pack says he believes many other government programs should be willing to make reports like this public information.
“We don’t have anything to hide. We want people to be able to see where the money is going and what it’s being used for, particularly when you get down to a lot of the homeschool folks and all the different things that they buy and who they buy it from,” he said.
According to the report, children in grades K-2 utilize the Hope Scholarship the most. Data from the report shows that 1,869 kindergarten-age children, 1,516 first graders, and 1,328 second graders were recipients of the scholarship in 2024-2025. Every other grade saw less than 1,000 recipients.
Pack says those stats are a result of the state ramping the program up and allowing all kindergarten-age students to be eligible.
“That’s why most of the participants are in kindergarten or first or second grade,” said Pack.
He says large increases in total scholarships like this past year won’t happen on a consistent basis in the future.
“They will definitely level off. This year, we’re going to be somewhere around 15,000 or 16,000 we believe. We have a rolling eligibility and people are able to sign up anytime of the year. Next year is the number we’re looking at, and when I think things level off, is when we get to universal eligibility.” Pack said.
Until this point, the program only applied to children leaving the public school system. At the start of the 2026-2027 academic year, any non-public school student will be eligible to apply for the funds.
Also among the over two dozen pages of data presented in the report is a list of the non-public school payments. The top 10 non-public schools based on total amount paid are as follows:
- Cross Lanes Christian School Cross Lanes — $1,004,246.09
- Faith Christian Academy Martinsburg — $985,686.28
- Covenant School Huntington — $909,754.27
- Heritage Christian School Bridgeport — $905,709.63
- Teays Valley Christian School Scott Depot — $896,746.82
- Bible Center School Charleston — $861,549.80
- Sacred Heart Grade School Charleston — $793,373.85
- St. Joseph School Martinsburg — $761,671.61
- Greater Beckley Christian School Mount Hope — $13,651.82
- St. Francis Central Catholic School Morgantown — $703,392.90
The report also shows the top 10 microschools based on total amount paid.
- City on a Hill Christian Academy Inc. Fairmont — $548,975.90
- Airborne Christian Academy Inc. Martinsburg — $454,510.82
- Expression Prep Inc. Huntington — $237,135.14
- Gilmer County Christian Academy, Inc. Sand Fork — $228,411.41
- Grace Bible Academy Asbury — $122,942.88
- In the Roots Learning and Tutoring Center, LLC Terra Alta — $103,118.69
- Horizons Education Center, Inc. Eglon — $98,742.24
- A Vandalia Community Microschool South Charleston — $98,738.53
- Pathfinder Institute Evans — $83,374.66
- Mountain Laurel Learning Cooperative Thomas — $79,402.19
The full Hope Scholarship 2024-2025 academic year report can be viewed here.