{"id":200900,"date":"2026-03-12T04:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T04:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/200900\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T04:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T04:09:11","slug":"nearly-20000-students-in-san-antonio-applied-for-school-vouchers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/200900\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly 20,000 students in San Antonio applied for school vouchers"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN ANTONIO \u2013 More than 163,000 applications for Texas Education Freedom Accounts<\/a> are in for students across the state. San Antonio students represent 19,422 of the total applicants so far.<\/p>\n

Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock touted the \u201cstrong\u201d demand for the launch of the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re expecting to sell out in year one,\u201d Hancock said in a press release. \u201cWe are also laying a strong foundation for school choice in Texas to flourish for years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, opponents of the program worry that too much funding will be allocated to TEFA in just a few years. According to a Feb. 2 Texas State Teachers Association press release, \u201cthe $1 billion lawmakers spent on the first year of the voucher program will increase to about $4 billion a year by 2030, the Legislative Budget Board has predicted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texas Education Freedom Accounts will prioritize students with disabilities whose families are at or below 500% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL).<\/p>\n

At or below 500% of the FPL, is equivalent to at or below about $160,750<\/a> for a family of four. There is a pretty big difference for people in the second-tier priority level. Families in the tier must be at or below 200% of the FPL, which is about $66,000 or less for a family of four.<\/p>\n

Families qualifying to be in the third tier are people who have an annual household income between 200% and 500% of the FPL. Families in the fourth and final tier can have an annual income at or above 500% of the FPL. However, \u201cchildren who were enrolled in a Texas public school or charter school for at least 90% of the prior school year will be prioritized in that group,\u201d according to the TEFA website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

State law requires that funding for students whose household income is at or above 500% can only make up 20% of the funding appropriated for TEFA in that school year.<\/p>\n

The program was touted as being for low-income families and students with disabilities<\/a>. The most recent statistics from the state comptroller\u2019s office show about 11% of applicants are in the highest priority group and 30% are in the second priority group.<\/p>\n

Local school districts stand to be impacted by the changes if a majority of applicants receive enough funding to attend private school or be homeschooled in the upcoming school years.<\/p>\n

The comptroller\u2019s office compiled a list of how many applications came from students who shared what public school district they are typically slated to attend.<\/p>\n

Northside ISD had 4,102 applicants<\/p>\n

North East ISD had 3,386 applicants<\/p>\n

Comal ISD had 2,171 applicants<\/p>\n

San Antonio ISD had 1,335 applicants<\/p>\n

Judson ISD had 1,183 applicants<\/p>\n

These numbers are as of March 8, but applications do not close until March 17.<\/p>\n

Read also:<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 More than 163,000 applications for Texas Education Freedom Accounts are in for students across the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[163,79264,82,84,83,4380,17870,51314],"class_list":["post-200900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-education","tag-education-savings-accouts","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-school-vouchers","tag-texas-education-freedom-accounts","tag-we-follow-through"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}