Financial Aid

According to Wikipedia.org, "School choice is a term for K–12 public education options in the United States, describing a wide array of programs offering students and their families alternatives to publicly provided schools, to which the location of their family residence generally assigns students." Vouchers have been in the headlines for almost thirty years. So, this is not a new issue, although the media attention sometimes implies that vouchers are a new idea. A timeline is helpful when dealing with a controversial issue such as school vouchers. But before we do that, what are vouchers?

EdChoice describes vouchers as:

"School vouchers give parents the freedom to choose a private school for their children, using all or part of the public funding set aside for their children’s education. Under such a program, funds typically spent by a school district would be allocated to a participating family in the form of a voucher to pay partial or full tuition for their child’s private school, including both religious and non-religious options."

You will hear vouchers called various names, such as parental choice, education grants, scholarships, and tuition grants, to list but a few of the names you will encounter for vouchers.15 states and the District of Columbia currently offer 26 voucher programs. School Voucher Laws State-by-State Comparison offers a useful table comparing the voucher programs offered in states that have them.

Why are vouchers controversial?

Now that you have access to

Vouchers have been a fact in American private school education since 1989 when the State of Wisconsin passed a voucher program which aimed to help students from low income families in Milwaukee. Since then 39 voucher programs have been set up. According to the American Federation for Children the following states now have some form of voucher program:

• Alabama
• Arizona
• Florida
• Georgia
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• New Hampshire
• North Carolina
• Ohio
• Oklahoma
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• South Carolina
• Utah
• Virginia
• Wisconsin

Vouchers

What exactly are vouchers? The simplest definition is using public funds to pay for a private school education. Voucher programs take many forms and we will look at those later in this article.

How many students nationwide benefit from voucher programs? In 2014 approximately 308,000 students were recipients of some kind of tax dollars in voucher programs or variations thereof. That is 0.006% of the K-12 public school student population which was approximately 50 million at the beginning of the 2014 school year. The actual expenditure is in the millions of dollars which like the number of students in voucher programs is tiny.

What is the future of voucher programs? As of 2015 voucher programs are state-sponsored, state-managed and state-funded programs. Some politicians, however, would like to see federal funds used for voucher programs nationwide. Why? Because their constituents are disatisfied with underperforming public schools.

What does the public education community think about vouchers? Needless to say, voucher programs in all their forms and variations are complete anathema to the teachers unions and the supporters of public education.

Finding the right private school for your child is a major process in and of itself. It is time-consuming with lots of steps, deadlines and forms to fill out and submit. Then, of course, you have to deal with the issue of how to pay for that private school education once you have identified the right school. Against this backdrop let's you and I figure out how to make the financial aid process work for us.

Start early

The key to success with any major project is to begin early. Taming the financial aid part of getting your child into private school begins with knowing how much you can afford to pay. Have that number worked out and clear in your mind. The most effective way at figuring out what you can pay is to review your income and expenses. Determine what you can afford to pay monthly for your child's tuition. Project that number also as an annual amount. Now bear in mind that this is a rough cut because what you are going to be doing very soon is completing the online documentation known as the Parents' Financial Statement or PFS provided by the School and Student Service (SSS) organization operated by the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS). The PFS will require accurate financial information about your income, expenses, and assets as well as information about any other children who are in tuition-charging schools, i.e., private school. Having that rough idea of how much

Opinion

Private school vouchers are available in one form or another in thirteen states and the District of Columbia. That being so, I wondered whether schools which accept vouchers are subject to state regulations over and above what they normally would be subject to. The National Conference of State Legislatures has a useful State-by-State Comparison of School Voucher Laws which allows you and me to compare the various programs.

Background

Currently thirteen states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws which provide scholarships for students meeting specific conditions so they can attend private school. These scholarships are generally referred to as vouchers. Do these private school voucher programs give parents' the choices they desire? Do private schools' give up their most cherished feature, namely, their independence? How are these programs working? What results are they achieving?

John Stoessel and others make the case for vouchers.

Most voucher programs have good intentions. They seek to give parents options in a specific set of circumstances. Sometimes the state voucher law is written to give vouchers to students with a learning disability. Other laws are written with low-income families in mind. Interestingly enough there seem to very few conditions which the private schools accepting vouchers have to meet. If the school merely accepts students without being concerned as to the source of their funding, the school apparently does not have to sacrifice any

What is financial aid? Financial aid is money given by individual private schools to help families pay for a private school education. Private schools give families millions of dollars annually to help them afford a private school education.

What is the purpose of financial aid? Financial aid is one tool private schools can use to make their school more diverse. Yes, many years ago, private schools had a less than positive reputation for being elitist. But thankfully, times have changed. Being able to pay for a private school education is no longer the only thing that matters. If your child has the qualifications which the school is looking for but you cannot afford to send her, then financial aid is certainly an option which you need to explore.

Read what one of the most prestigious private schools in the United States of America has to say about diversity:

"Andover's broad socio-economic diversity is a hallmark of the Academy as displayed in the inclusive distribution of financial aid grants to low-, middle- and upper-middle-income families."

This video offers a video of the Latin School of Chicago.

Phillips Andover, like a great many private schools, has a Need Blind Admission policy in place. What that means is that the school does not look at your financial circumstances as part of its admissions criteria. Ask whether the school to which you are applying has a