[T]he program has become a subsidy for predominantly wealthy, white suburban families. The program's average recipient is a white female, who has never attended public school, from a family earning more than $99,000 a year. The shift has taken a huge bite out of state funding for public school - an estimated $600 million this year.

Looking forward, experts and critics in Indiana question whether the state can afford to subsidize sometimes wealthy private schools to the tune of $1.6 billion (since the program started) without devastating the public schools that provide the vast majority of the state's education.

When the voucher program first launched in 2011, 24 percent of voucher users were black students. Today, that demographic has dropped to 9 percent. At the same time, the number of white students on vouchers has increased from 46 percent to 64 percent as the program has expanded.

In 2023, the eligibility was changed again to include families with incomes up to 400 percent of the free and reduced lunch threshold. The result was that a family of four that makes over $222,000 now qualifies. Today, there are more students receiving vouchers whose families make more than $100,000 than those making less than $50,000.

"It started out low-income, but it is no longer low-income," State Rep. Cherish Pryor said. "It's now a way for some of the wealthiest individuals or upper-income individuals to pay for their child's private education."

Pryor also voiced concern for a lack of diversity and fairness. The fact that private schools do not have to "let in every student that presents themselves to the school" raises equity issues.

"You're getting taxpayer dollars - you should be accountable for every single penny that you spend," she said. "But I don't think it's fair to starve our traditional schools and then expect for their performances to be stellar when we haven't given them the proper resources to have a stellar educational system."

This is another example of how something supposedly implemented to help minority - nominally poorer black students - has been transformed into another wealth-transfer to predominately upper-middle class white families who previously paid 100% of the cost to send their kids to private/parochial schools. Instead of helping disadvantaged minorities - as these voucher programs were originally sold to the public - now the program benefits whites at the expense of poorer blacks, and becomes another example - whether intentionally or unintentionally - of tacit systemic bias, nee racism, in its usage.