Write an article about Florida pupils could get more public cash for private school .Organize the content with appropriate headings and subheadings (h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6) and made content unique, Retain any existing tags from
A national voucher program, promising to help students across the country pay for private school, is likely to hand a windfall to families in the Sunshine State who can add it to one of the nation’s most generous state-paid private school subsidy programs.
The new federal program, approved earlier this month as part of the GOP’s sweeping domestic policy bill, will create a pot of money for tuition and other expenses by allowing people to contribute to nonprofit scholarship funding organizations and then subtract the value of their donations from their tax bills.
Families in states that choose to opt into the federal program will be eligible to receive vouchers they can use to send their children to private campuses or pay for other educational expenses, such as tutoring, though it’s unknown how much money might be available.
In Florida, which already spends more than $3 billion annually to send students to private, mostly religious campuses, the federal money could sweeten the deal for scholarship recipients — and potentially for private schools, as the extra infusion of funds could help justify future tuition increases.
Since Florida’s controversial voucher program was expanded in 2023, families of any income level have been able to use state-backed scholarships valued at roughly $8,000, often called vouchers, to send their children to hundreds of campuses across the state, including dozens of schools where annual tuition tops $15,000.
Once reserved for low-income students and those with disabilities, vouchers are now available to all. The proportion of private school students with state scholarships topped 70% this school year, up from less than a third a decade ago, the Orlando Sentinel reported earlier this year.
In Florida, more than 122,000 new students started using vouchers for the first time during the 2023-24 school year, but nearly 70 percent were already in private school, according to data from Step Up For Students, the nonprofit that administers most of the state’s scholarships. About 40 percent came from families too wealthy to have qualified previously.
The new federal awards are to have income limits, though they are relatively high: Families earning up to three times the annual household income for their area would be eligible. The legislation is to take effect in 2027.
The majority of states currently have programs that help parents pay private school tuition. Supporters of school vouchers have cheered the addition of a national program, though some have lamented that it doesn’t, in their view, go far enough.
Robert Enlow, president and CEO of EdChoice, a pro-voucher organization, described the federal program as “a humble start.”
“Congress tried to swing for the fences and hit a single,” Enlow said.
A home run, he said, would have been legislation that guaranteed families in every state would be eligible for the federal money, included a higher cap on the tax credits and allowed all taxpayers, including corporations, that contribute to the scholarship funding organizations to receive a tax credit.
With taxpayers eligible for a maximum credit of $1,700, Enlow said, a lot of people will need to contribute to make an impact for a significant number of families.
It’s hard to know how much this program might eventually cost taxpayers, especially since only families in states that decide to opt in will be eligible to receive funding. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation estimated the program could divert nearly $26 billion from federal coffers over the next decade to pay the cost of the tax credit.
That’s a concern for voucher critics, who say they siphon resources away from the traditional public schools that serve the majority of the country’s students and do not face the same standards of accountability. In Florida, private schools that take state money do not have to administer the state’s standardized tests or employ teachers with college degrees, as the public schools are required to do. Norín Dollard, senior policy analyst with the Florida Policy Institute, a left-leaning group, said she’s concerned the federal program will fail to set appropriate standards for schools, as well.
In addition to students enrolled in private schools, homeschooled and public school students will be eligible to receive money from the federal program, Enlow pointed out.
But in Florida, the bulk of money from the state’s existing voucher programs is used to pay private school tuition.
Dollard said she’s also concerned that private schools do not have to admit every student who wants to enroll, even if they accept public funding. Some campuses decline to serve students who have disabilities; are gay, transgender or come from LGBTQ families; or do not subscribe to the school leaders’ religious views.
“It perpetuates this illusion of parent choice,” Dollard said. “Parents do not pick private schools; schools pick the students that they serve.”
anmartin@orlandosentinel.com
Originally Published: July 21, 2025 at 6:00 AM EDT
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