Thousands More Florida Kids Make it to College Thanks to School Choice Program

Published September 29, 2017

More Florida students are enrolling in college thanks to the state’s tax-credit scholarship program, a study finds:

The Florida program provides tax credits as an incentive for corporations to donate to nonprofit organizations that can then provide scholarships for students in families with limited financial resources, allowing them to pay for tuition and fees at an eligible private school or transportation to a public school outside his or her district.

The new research, published Wednesday by the Urban Institute, found that participation in the Florida program increases college enrollment rates by 6 percentage points, or about 15 percent. And the benefit was larger among students who participated in the program for a greater number of years, the analysis found. Students enrolled in the program for four or more years saw an 18-point increase in college enrollment – a 43 percent hike.

Moreover, the researchers underscored that their results may actually underestimate the impact of the program, since the study only looked at enrollment at public colleges in Florida. National data, the report points out, indicate that low-income students who graduate from private high schools are more likely to enroll in private and out-of-state colleges than low-income students from public high schools.

More students – especially underprivileged ones – attending college can only convince people of the value of education choice programs, right? Unless, of course, those people are members of teachers unions, in which case only a salary boost will convince them of anything.  

SOURCE: U.S. News and World Report


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