Steamboat Legacy Scholarship Money: $7,000 a Year, Paid Quarterly, and What That Means for Your Budget

By My Learning Source · October 19, 2026 · Scholarships, Guides

The number is easy. The Wyoming Department of Education lists $7,000 per eligible student for the Steamboat Legacy Scholarship, the state's education savings account program. The family handbook for 2026-27 says the same thing: $7,000 a year, deposited in equal quarterly installments. What families get wrong is everything around that number: when it arrives, how you spend it and what happens to the part you don't spend.

Where the $7,000 comes from

The 2025 law, House Bill 199, set the award at seven thousand dollars for eligible K-12 students, with no income test. It also set $7,000 for eligible pre-kindergarten students whose household income is at or below 250 percent of the federal poverty level. You can read the amounts in the 2025 enrolled act. Before 2025, the original law tied the award to household income, with $6,000 at the top. That income schedule is gone for K-12 students.

Two notes on the fine print. First, the law says payments are made subject to available funds, and when applications exceed the money, students are funded first-come, first-served, with preference for returning students and their siblings. Second, the 2025 law lets the superintendent hold back up to 5 percent of deposits in the program's first two school years, and up to 3 percent after that, to pay administration costs, if the superintendent decides it is necessary. The family materials we read list $7,000 per student and do not mention a withholding. If your planning depends on the exact figure, ask WDE.

When it lands in 2026-27

The department's ESA page lists these quarterly disbursement dates for the 2026-27 school year:

Quarter 1: early September 2026
Quarter 2: early November 2026
Quarter 3: early February 2027
Quarter 4: early May 2027

So $7,000 a year works out to

,750 a quarter. If you are planning a big purchase in October, such as a full-year curriculum plus a laptop, know that you will have one quarter's deposit plus any rollover in the account, not the whole year. Put those four dates on your education calendar and plan bigger purchases after a deposit.

The department also told families that purchases made before September 1, 2026 are not eligible for reimbursement. The 2026-27 program year started late because of the court case, and the department said it hopes future timelines will line up better with the start of school.

You never hold it as cash

The money sits in an account on the Odyssey platform. You spend it in three ways:

Marketplace orders. You order approved items or services through the portal, the vendor ships or delivers, and the vendor is paid through the portal.
School tuition. You pick a registered school during the application. The school confirms enrollment and tuition, and payment runs through the portal.
Reimbursement. Only for a short list of categories, only when the item can't be bought through the marketplace, and only if you submit within 30 days of purchase.

The handbook is blunt about the rest. You cannot deposit your own money into the account. Funds cannot be moved between siblings' accounts. Providers cannot refund, rebate or share account money with a parent; any refund goes back into the student's account. And the parent contract says unused money is always the state's property, not yours.

What happened to the 2025-26 money

Families approved for 2025-26 waited most of the year while a court injunction blocked payments. When the Wyoming Supreme Court lifted that injunction in May 2026, the department said the ruling was not retroactive, so it could not cover the full 2025-26 year. Instead, the fourth-quarter payment of

,750 could roll into 2026-27 for students who had been approved for 2025-26 and were not enrolled in public school that year. Those rollover funds can only be used for eligible 2026-27 expenses.

A family running the numbers

The Brennans near Sheridan were approved in 2025, kept their two kids home all year and never received a dollar. This fall each child's account opened with the regular first-quarter deposit plus the

,750 rollover. They used the bigger September balance for their twelve-year-old's math and science curriculum and a laptop, which falls under the marketplace's

,000 cap for laptops. Their eight-year-old's account paid for a year of reading curriculum, and they plan to request reimbursement for her museum admissions, one of the few categories allowed outside the marketplace. Then they wrote down what was left so they would know what could carry into next year.

(A composite example — names and details are illustrative, drawn from situations homeschool families commonly describe.)

Leftover money rolls over, with limits

The statute says an account stays active and unused money does not revert until the parent withdraws the child or the child is no longer eligible, unless the account is closed for substantial misuse. The handbook puts it this way: money left at the end of the school year rolls to the next year as long as the student stays in the program. Families must reapply every year to confirm eligibility.

When an account closes, for any reason, the balance goes back to the program account. If you later reenroll, the new account starts like any new account. So rollover is useful, but it is not savings you can take with you.

Quick budget checklist

Plan on
,750 per child per quarter for 2026-27, and confirm any admin holdback with WDE.
Check the marketplace first. Reimbursement is the exception, not the default.
Keep every receipt, even for marketplace purchases. Accounts are randomly audited.
Watch the price caps on electronics before you shop.
Plan spending per child. Money does not move between siblings.
Reapply on time each year, or the balance can stop being yours to direct.

Bottom line

Seven thousand dollars is a solid amount for a home-educated child in Wyoming, but it comes in four pieces and lives on a platform, not in your bank account. Read the current ESA Family Handbook, check the dates on the department's ESA page, and see our Steamboat Legacy Scholarship guide for the bigger picture.

My Learning Source is an independent marketplace and is not affiliated with the Wyoming Department of Education, Odyssey or the Steamboat Legacy Scholarship program. Amounts, dates and rules are set by the state and can change — confirm details with the Wyoming Department of Education before you spend or plan around the money. Family examples are composites, not real individuals.

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