TL;DR: Tennessee's Education Savings Account pays $10,132.54 for 2026-27, but only to income-eligible children zoned to Memphis-Shelby County Schools or to a school the Achievement School District ran in May 2019. Families zoned to Germantown, Collierville, Bartlett, Arlington, Lakeland or Millington schools, or living in Tipton or Fayette, are outside it. Check the zoned school for your exact address before you plan around the larger award.
Who can use the Tennessee ESA in Shelby County?
A child can use the ESA if the home address is zoned to a Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) campus, or to a school that belonged to the Achievement School District (ASD) on May 24, 2019, and the family clears an income test and an enrollment-history test. TDOE's 2026-27 handbook lists the zone rule first, before income, because nothing else matters if the address falls outside it.
The program began years before the statewide Education Freedom Scholarship, and the legislature limited it to three districts: MSCS, Metro Nashville and Hamilton County. That is why Memphis is one of the few places in Tennessee where a family can be eligible for two different school-choice programs at once.
Why does a Cordova or Bartlett mailing address not settle the question?
Because the ESA follows school attendance zones, and in eastern and northern Shelby County those zones do not match city names on envelopes. In 2014, six suburbs opened their own school districts, which the Catholic Diocese of Memphis later pointed to as one pressure on its inner-city schools. Those six (Arlington, Bartlett, Collierville, Germantown, Lakeland and Millington) are separate from MSCS.
A home with a Cordova or Memphis mailing address can still sit inside a municipal district's zone, and a home near Bartlett can be zoned to an MSCS school. The safe step is to look up the zoned school for the street address, then compare it with the ESA rule. In our directory, the Cordova and Eads, Germantown and Collierville, and Bartlett and Arlington area pages are all marked "split" for this reason.
What income and history does an MSCS-zone family need?
Last year's household income must be at or under double the federal free-meal line, which is $85,800 for four people on the chart in force from July 1, 2026. Families receiving SNAP or TANF, and children directly certified as economically disadvantaged, meet that test automatically.
The child also needs one of these: a full previous year in a Tennessee public school; a first-ever Tennessee enrollment, such as kindergarten or a move from another state; first eligibility during 2019-20, 2020-21 or 2021-22; or an ESA last year. The handbook's own example is a second grader homeschooled last year, who must spend a year in public school before qualifying.
| Where the child is zoned | ESA ($10,132.54) | EFS ($7,530) | IEA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Memphis-Shelby County Schools | Yes, if income and history fit | Yes | Yes, with a covered IEP |
| A school the ASD ran on May 24, 2019 | Yes, same tests | Yes | Yes, with a covered IEP |
| Arlington, Bartlett, Collierville, Germantown, Lakeland or Millington district | No | Yes | Yes, with a covered IEP |
| Tipton County or Fayette County schools | No | Yes | Yes, with a covered IEP |
ESA vs EFS: what changes for a family on the MSCS side of the line?
The ESA pays about $2,600 more per year than EFS, and it can also cover tuition and books at eligible Tennessee colleges. A child approved for both can use only one in a school year, and both programs mean the public school IEP stops applying while the child participates.
There is also a quiet advantage. Being eligible for the ESA puts a child in EFS Priority 2, near the front of the line, so an MSCS-zone family that misses the ESA window still has a strong EFS application. The reverse is not true: a municipal-district family has no ESA fallback at all.
What the ESA is not for Memphis families
It is not a county-wide benefit, and it is not open to a child who has been in private school for years without an ESA. It does not pay label IV church schools or home education, and it does not exempt the child from testing: ESA students in grades 3 through 11 take the state TCAP each spring. It also requires a new application and new income proof every year.
For 2027-28 the ESA application opens February 2, 2027 at noon Central and closes April 15 at 4 p.m.
How fast is the ESA growing, and what happens after a move?
The program has more than doubled in three years. TDOE's annual report counts 2,088 ESA students at 81 schools in 2023-24, 3,693 at 97 schools in 2024-25 and 4,766 at 110 schools in 2025-26, across all three eligible districts. In 2025-26, 251 students withdrew during the year, some because they enrolled in public school, moved out of state or switched to a label IV or V school.
Moves matter because eligibility rests on the zoned school. The handbook treats a family arriving from another state after a district's first ten school days as eligible both for that year and the next, and it gives the example of a Memphis address with an August 3, 2026 start date. A family moving within Shelby County should check the new zone before the next application, since the ESA is renewed with fresh proof every year. TDOE also ran a second-semester-only window, September 1 to October 15, 2026, worth half the annual amount; it has closed for this year, but it is worth knowing about if your situation changes in the fall.
One more practical point: the ESA pays the school through an online account, and TDOE released 2026-27 money in four parts, half in August and the rest in October, January and March. Schools set their own billing calendars inside that schedule.
Frequently asked questions
Who can use the Tennessee ESA in Shelby County?
Children zoned to an MSCS school or a former ASD school, in households under double the free-meal income line, who meet one enrollment-history test.
Why does a Cordova or Bartlett mailing address not settle the question?
The ESA follows the zoned public school, and suburban zone lines do not match mailing cities, so look up the zoned school for the exact address.
ESA vs EFS: what changes for a family on the MSCS side of the line?
The ESA pays about $2,600 more, and ESA eligibility also places the child in EFS Priority 2.
Related questions
- ESA or EFS: which should an MSCS-zone family choose?
- ESA details for the MSCS zone
- Check my EFS tier and ESA income line
- Moving to the Memphis area
Sources
- TDOE — Education Savings Account Program
- TDOE — ESA 2026-27 Family and Schools Handbook
- America Magazine — Memphis Catholic schools to reopen as charters (2019)
See which programs fit your child →
