{"id":207328,"date":"2026-03-16T21:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T21:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/207328\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T21:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T21:34:09","slug":"more-than-200000-students-apply-for-texas-education-savings-account-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/207328\/","title":{"rendered":"More than 200,000 students apply for Texas education savings account program"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 200,000 students have applied for Texas\u2019 new education savings account program, according to numbers released Monday by the state comptroller\u2019s office. <\/p>\n

Families have until 11:59 p.m. Tuesday to apply for Texas Education Freedom Accounts, the state\u2019s new private school choice <\/a>program. The program gives families public money to pay for expenses like private school tuition<\/a> and homeschooling costs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

State officials say the program\u2019s inaugural application period is the largest-ever launch of a new school choice program in U.S. history. By 10 a.m. Monday, 200,003 students had applied for the program, including 6,707 students who are zoned to Dallas ISD, 3,782 in Fort Worth ISD and 3,691 in Plano ISD, according to the comptroller\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

The $1 billion program gives priority to students with disabilities<\/a> and students in low- to middle-income families. A majority of applicants fall into those categories. Students with disabilities made up 12% of the applicants, and students whose families earned less than twice the federal poverty level made up 30% of the applicants. Another 30% were in families whose income was between two and five times the federal poverty level.<\/p>\n

The Education Lab<\/p>\n

Receive our in-depth coverage of education issues and stories that affect North Texans.<\/p>\n

By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n

The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.<\/p>\n

The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, Judy and Jim Gibbs, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Ron and Phyllis Steinhart, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab\u2019s journalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 200,000 students have applied for Texas\u2019 new education savings account program, according to numbers released Monday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[324,4179,163,166,4379,27,29,28,292],"class_list":["post-207328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-dallas-fortworth","tag-ed-lab-politics-policy","tag-education","tag-education-lab","tag-school-choice","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207328","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=207328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}