Three years into the Parental Choice Tax Credit, the taxpayer-funded program that helps Oklahoma families pay private school tuition is tilting further toward its highest earners. Allocation data from the Oklahoma Tax Commission show households earning more than $150,000 will claim about $104.2 million for the coming school year — 40.8 percent of the money — up from $97 million the year before.

The movement at the top is even sharper. The number of participating students from families earning more than $250,000 grew by 995 to 10,639 for the coming year, a 10.3 percent jump, and the overall count of high-income students rose by nearly 1,300. Over the same stretch, the number of low- and middle-income students in the program fell by nearly 900. In the 2025-26 school year, the program put $247.8 million in credits behind 39,587 children statewide.

The credit, created in 2023, is open to families at any income level, with larger per-student credits reserved for lower incomes, and it has grown every year it has existed — from a $150 million cap in its first year to $250 million now. This session, lawmakers raised it again: House Bill 3705 adds $25 million, bringing the cap to $275 million for the 2026-27 school year when the law takes effect August 13.

Senate Democrats seized on the numbers, arguing a program sold as an escape hatch for working families is increasingly a subsidy for households already able to afford tuition — a critique sharpened by earlier reporting that more than 90 percent of recipient families already had children enrolled in private school. Supporters counter that demand is broad, that teachers and middle-income parents use the credit too, and that growth at every income level shows the program working as designed.

What to watch: the higher cap arrives August 13, so next year's allocation data will show whether the extra $25 million changes who gets in. The Legislature returns in February, and the income mix — not the program's existence — is where the fight now lives. Proposals to tighten income tiers or reserve more of the cap for lower earners would have to move through a Capitol that has voted, so far, only to make the program bigger.

Sources: KFOR: income gap widens · Oklahoma Voice: who benefits from the program · KGOU: cap raised to $275 million