Skiing and snowboarding classes teach life lessons, camaraderie and self-sufficiency, Emily McDonald said.
“That’s where you learn,” said McDonald, a spokesperson for the Park City Mountain resort. “Because you fall down, you get back up again, you try not to fall again. That’s the best way to learn.”
But state lawmakers felt snow sports fell short of the Utah Fits All scholarship’s intended purpose when they created the voucher program.
The “overwhelming majority” of expenses in the first year of Utah Fits All reasonably met lawmakers’ expectations, Sen. Kirk Cullimore and Rep. Candice Pierucci said.
“A small number of outlier items, such as the ski passes, were clear exceptions,” the two Republican lawmakers said in a statement. The statement didn’t elaborate on why those items didn’t meet their expectations.
Cullimore, of Draper, and Pierucci, of Herriman, sponsored a law passed in the most recent legislative session that newly caps both extracurricular expenses and physical education expenses. Those are now limited to, at most, 20% each of a student’s scholarship.
HB455 also bans parents from using Utah Fits All money on a specific list of items. Among them are ski passes or lift tickets and recreational equipment.
Utah families spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on outdoor recreation and related gear, according to a Salt Lake Tribune analysis of about $61.5 million in transactions from August 2024 to March 2025.
That included more than $120,000 spent at ski resorts. Around $11,000 of that was cited as going to Park City Mountain or its Colorado-based parent company, Vail Resorts.
Bicycles and cycling gear
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Brian Van Blekkom and his son, Owen, 4, ride their bikes at the Draper Cycle Park, Tuesday, May 14, 2019.
Utah parents spent $405,587.09 on bikes and cycling gear in 600 separate transactions at 74 different stores.
More than half of that money went to seven bike shops:
Outdoor gear
Excluding ski and snowboard gear, $154,294.59 of the Utah Fits All spending The Tribune examined went to outdoor recreation equipment.
Though parents spent money at dozens of different stores and on dozens of brands, the majority went to four major retailers where parents spent at least $10,000:
Ski resorts and passes
Utah parents spent voucher money at least 528 times to cover ski passes and lift tickets.
About half of the $122,706.36 spent was at four Utah-based resorts:
In some cases, parents bought an Ikon Pass, which includes Snowbasin and Brighton among other Utah resorts, or an Epic Pass, which includes Park City Mountain.
Utah Fits All scholarship money also went to several other Utah resorts, as well as Timberline on Oregon’s Mount Hood and Pomerelle Mountain Resort, located about an hour from the Utah-Idaho border.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Snowbird closes the book on the 2024-25 ski season on Monday, May 26, 2025. The resort received about $4,500 in Utah Fits All scholarship dollars in the first year of the program.
Some parents took advantage of deals the mountains offer, like the Park City Youth Pass, or discounted passes from Ski Utah.
And some students were on ski teams, though The Tribune separated those expenses into a different category covering athletics.
Ski and snowboard equipment
Parents spent $53,828.16 at ski and snowboard shops. Most of those 195 transactions appear to be rentals, including some seasonal rentals.
Public lands, including national and state parks
Utah Fits All families spent $18,062.99 on entry into and items at national and state parks and public lands.
Most of the 443 transactions were within Utah or the West. However, some families used the money as far away as Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which straddles the border between North Carolina and Tennessee.
The spending included $1,700 at This Is The Place Heritage Park — a Utah state park — and $974.07 at Zion National Park. Smaller amounts were spent at Grand Canyon National Park in northern Arizona and Kings Canyon National Park, about four hours southeast of San Francisco.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Kids learn to do the Virginia Reel at This is the Place Heritage State Park on Thursday, July 24, 2025. The state park was one of many where parents used Utah Fits All Scholarship money.
More recreation-related expenses
About $17,500 of the scholarship money The Tribune examined went to other outdoor-related expenses:
Parents also spent more than $580,000 on expenses that were related to recreation but not necessarily the outdoors:
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