CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Around 20,000 West Virginia students have signed up for the Hope Scholarship for the 2026-27 school year. State Treasurer Larry Pack, who also chairs the Hope Scholarship Board, said the figure represents about 8,000 new students from last year’s enrollment and about 12,000 are previous award winners.
“We’ve got two months left of sign-ups until June 15th. We’re estimating somewhere in the 30,000 range of students who will take advantage of the Hope Scholarship,” said Pack in an appearance on 580-Live on MetroNews flagship station 580 WCHS in Charleston.
Existing private school and traditional homeschool students who have not previously been eligible for the Hope Scholarship Program are now eligible to apply to participate in the State’s Education Savings Account program that provides funding to students exercising school choice in lieu of attending public school full-time.
Pack said those who have been critical of the scholarship may not understand it.
“I think the biggest misconception is parents aren’t thoughtfully making their choice. I think people are getting that wrong,” he said. “We know one size does not fit all and this is what parents are dealing with. They’re trying to get their children a good education, the education that fits their child which is different and they make really thoughtful decisions. What Hope Scholarship does is give parents the option to make these decisions,” he explained.
Pack said he also doesn’t buy the argument the Hope Scholarship is coming at the expense of public school enrollment.
“We believe very few students who currently choose Hope Scholarship would have went to public schools. Of the 16,000 this year, maybe 2,000 would have gone to public schools and 2,000 over 55 counties is not a lot of students,” he said.
Pack admitted that the public school system is in a difficult spot and needs to adapt.
“The public school system absolutely has a lot of issues. At our high mark we had over 600,000 students and we’re down to a little over 230,0000 and we still have a lot of the same infrastructure, so it’s really difficult,” he said.
Pack said the loss of students with the same overhead is the cause of the struggle for the public school system. He used the teachers payraise as an example.
“In the past two years we’ve given them a 3% raise. Inflation is just crushing it,” Pack said.