Last updated: May 5, 2025
Applications are OPEN for 2025-2026!
If you’re a resident of Arkansas and you have children in grades K-12, you may be eligible for state funds through Arkansas’ Educational Freedom Account scholarship.
According to the Arkansas Department of Education’s website, “Signed into law as part of Governor Sanders’ LEARNS education legislation, Education Freedom Accounts may be used by eligible families to cover private school tuition,
fees, uniforms, and some other required expenses. Education Freedom Accounts provide funding up to 90% of the State’s prior year per-student foundation funding amount.”
The good news for homeschool families in Arkansas is that these funds are available for covering homeschool-related expenses.
Compass Classroom is now a vendor with the Arkansas EFA program, which means you can use your funds to purchase our video courses, books, subscriptions, and online classes.
If you have already been awarded Arkansas EFA funds for your kids, scroll down to the bottom of this article to learn exactly how to use the funds with Compass Classroom.
If, however, you aren’t sure how to access your funds, we will step you through the process. The following article explains:
- What is the Arkansas EFA program?
- How much money comes in an Arkansas EFA?
- What can I pay for with an Arkansas EFA?
- How do I sign up for an Arkansas EFA?
- How do I use my Arkansas EFA with ClassWallet?
- How do I use ClassWallet to purchase Compass Classroom products?
- Links and Contact Info for the Arkansas EFA program
We have tried to simplify and summarize the material available on the Arkansas EFA program, but if you’d like to consult the actual site for additional questions, they have useful FAQs at the Arkansas EFA program website.
What is the Arkansas EFA program?
Arkansas’ EFA program is a type of education savings account. It provides tax-free scholarship dollars to Arkansas families to help them pursue flexible options for their children’s learning. This includes families who homeschool their children.
EFAs are accounts funded by state tax dollars. The money that would pay for that student’s education in a neighborhood school instead follows that student to whichever school the parents choose for their child, including education at home.
How much money comes in an Arkansas EFA?
For the 2025-2026 school year the Arkansas EFA will provide $6,864, or $1,716 per quarter. Students in the foster care system, children of active-duty or reserve members of the US military, and students with disabilities qualify for additional funding through the Succeed program–$7,627 per year or $1,906.75 per quarter.
Furthermore, EFA funds are not considered taxable income. This is important to remember when tax seasons comes around.
It’s important to realize, however, that EFA funds are not money that a parent can directly withdraw and use to pay for education. Instead, parents must use a special online company called “ClassWallet” that acts as an intermediary to pay vendors or provide reimbursements to parents. We will explain more about that below after first talking about what you can pay for with an EFA.
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What can I pay for with an Arkansas EFA?
There is wide latitude for using the funds placed in an EFA. Acceptable educational expenses include:
● Tuition
● Fees
● Required school uniforms
● Testing Costs – if test has an educational or instructional purpose
○ Educational testing
○ Placement testing
○ Diagnostic testing
○ Post-secondary entrance exams (SAT/ACT, etc.)
○ Assessment fees to obtain industry-based credentials
● Services provided by or at the participating school, when a student is enrolled in
a private school
● Instructional materials required for in-person or virtual instruction provided by a
participating service provider or participating school
● Instructional services
● Music Lessons, Gymnastics, Dance, etc. – no more than 2x/week
● Tutoring services
● Curricula
● Supplemental materials or supplies required by a course of study for a particular
content area
● Fees for courses and associated assessments for college credit
● Fees for courses and assessments for participating in career and technical
education, including without limitation career training
The good news is that everything Compass Classroom offers, from video courses to textbooks to subscriptions to live classes, are covered under the Arkansas EFA program.
Please review the list of acceptable expenses and the list of unacceptable expenses before making purchases.
How Do I Sign Up for an EFA?
Families who wish to participate in Arkansas’ EFA program need to submit an application through the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) by creating an account here. Once you have submitted your application and created an account, the Arkansas Department of Education will review your application and notify you once you have been awarded funding.
The Arkansas EFA application can be found here or by logging into the LEARNS system here.
How Do I Use my EFA with ClassWallet?
As we explained above. ClassWallet is the financial management platform for the Arkansas Education Freedom Account program. It’s run by a different company that provides educational services to many different states. The state of Arkansas has contracted with ClassWallet to oversee the disbursement of EFA funds.
All scholarship students will have a digital account account created for them soon after they have been notified of their scholarship award. The scholarship student’s parent will receive an email that will welcome the student and parent to the Arkansas EFA program. Following the prompts provided, parents will complete the process of creating their EFA account and be able to also create an account with ClassWallet.
While the account is established for an awarded student, it will have limited functions until the $6,864 award is actually deposited in the ClassWallet account. These funds are disbursed quarterly, so parents do not have access to the entire award upfront, but with careful planning parents can budget and plan their student’s educational expenses over the course of the year.
Once scholarship funds are deposited into ClassWallet, parents can view each student’s balance, upload invoices, initiate payments to approved providers, view previous purchases, request reimbursements, shop the digital marketplace using their student’s funds, and more. Separate accounts are created for all students, even students who reside in the same house. Families may switch easily between scholarship students while logged onto the platform.
There are three ways to use your EFA funds via ClassWallet:
- ClassWallet Marketplace: This is an online marketplace for purchasing items with a limited number of approved vendors. This is basically an ecommerce store built into the ClassWallet system. Here is a link to a YouTube video that explains this process. If you want to find Compass Classroom on the Arkansas marketplace, follow this link to the list of Vendors and Service Providers. Note: Compass Classroom can be found under the PRODUCT VENDORS tab.
- ClassWallet Direct Pay Vendors: (Note: Compass Classroom is also a Direct Pay Vendor) These are companies which are registered with the EFA system and so can be paid directly with your EFA funds. You do this by going to the vendor’s website, adding the products you want to your cart, then taking a screenshot of the cart or getting an EFA approved invoice from that company (We show exactly how to do this in the next step below).
- ClassWallet Reimbursements: You can link your bank account to the ClassWallet site, then make a purchase using your own money. You then upload the paid invoices to the ClassWallet site, they review them, then reimburse you via your bank account.
Homeschool parents should learn how to use all three methods, since homeschooling often requires different approaches for each child.
How do I use ClassWallet to purchase Compass Classroom products?
Compass Classroom is a registered vendor with the Arkansas EFA, so you can use the “Pay Vendor” button on your dashboard to easily pay for our products. You can purchase anything we sell with the Arkansas EFA, you just need to follow these steps.
- Shop on Compass Classroom for all the products you want, then add all of them to your cart.
- View Cart, then start the checkout process.
- If you are a returning customer, click the button to login. Otherwise, fill out your name and shipping address.
- You will next see a button you can click that reads “This is an ESA Order”. You can click on this to add in your student’s name and information.
- Under the payment section, instead of putting in your credit card info, click on the button that reads “Pay by Check or State Scholarship Funding (ESA/EFA/ClassWallet/Odyssey.” This will generate an automatic invoice that will be emailed to you which you can then use in the DirectPay system. Here’s what it looks like on our site:
You will receive an email invoice with all the information about the products you need to purchase. This email needs to be saved as a PDF. (You can do this by opening the email, choosing to print, and then choosing to save as a PDF.)
You will next need to login to ClassWallet:
- Click on Pay Vendor in the bottom right.
- Search for Compass Classroom in the list of Vendors, then select it.
- Upload the PDF receipt of your Compass Classroom order.
- Choose to pay with your available funds.
- Select the appropriate educational category.
- You can add optional comments, then review your order.
Here’s a helpful slide deck from ClassWallet which explains the process in more detail.
That’s it! We will receive notification that Arkansas EFA has paid for your products, we will match it to your invoice, then ship them directly to you. Please note that It could take up to a week for them to process your payment. Once we receive payment, however, we will ship immediately. If online courses were part of your order, access will be added to your Compass Classroom account when we receive notification that Arkansas EFA has paid. You will receive a welcome email from Compass Classroom for each course that you purchased.
What Can I Buy from Compass Classroom?
Compass Classroom has been developing video courses and curriculum materials for homeschool families since 2010. We provide comprehensive, self-guided, flexible courses in multiple subjects. Our goal is to make homeschooling easy for parents, enjoyable to students, and effective for learning.
We specialize in self-paced, user-guided video courses with accompanying textbooks and materials, as well as online teacher guidance. We provide courses for upper elementary to high school, including the following subjects: History, Economics, Literature, Science, Latin, Vocabulary, Calculus, Philosophy, Music, Grammar, Writing.
To see everything we offer, you can click SHOP in the menu below, click the button either to see all our products, or to view our catalog.
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Links and Contact Info for the Arkansas EFA
Here are a list of useful links, email, and phone number for the Arkansas EFA:
Arkansas Department of Education–EFA-specific information
Contact Information:
Office of School Choice and Parent Empowerment
Arkansas Department of Education
Division of Elementary and Secondary Education
Four Capitol Mall
Little Rock, AR 72201
Phone: 501-683-1876
Email: [email protected]
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