There’s a rumor going around that there is a web site where people with Education Freedom Accounts (EFAs) can go to find people who need things like printers, or musical instruments, or martial arts gear.
Holders of EFA accounts can use them to buy things that have been approved (by the Children’s Scholarship Fund, which oversees EFA expenditures), and then sell them (at a significant discount) to the people they find on the site, thus converting their EFA funds to cash.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. People with Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards have been running this scam for years. You let someone use your card to buy food, and they give you cash that you can use to buy cigarettes or alcohol or drugs or whatever you want.
But with EFAs, it’s not even illegal. There are no rules governing how you get rid of an item that you bought for educational purposes, once you’re done with it… or if you realize, after buying it, that you don’t actually want or need it. You can’t take it back to the vendor to get a cash refund. But that doesn’t mean you can’t sell it to someone else.
What percentage of EFA funds can we expect to be cashed out in this way? There’s no way to know. But it’s worth noting that at least one of the people who recently testified in favor of universal EFAs said (without even a hint of embarrassment) that she would like to be able to get one, so she could afford ski passes, and to remodel her basement.
Pay-and-Pray continues its undefeated streak:
https://granitegrok.com/blog/2023/12/pay-and-pray-funding
https://granitegrok.com/new-england/nh/2025/01/efas-simply-continue-the-failed-pay-and-pray-paradigm
