HOUSTON \u2013 The rollout of Texas\u2019 new Education Freedom Account program is off to a high-demand start, with more than 274,000 applications submitted in less than two months, according to the Texas Education Freedom Account (TEFA) program.<\/p>\n
Applications were accepted between Feb. 4 and March 31, 2026, and officials say all submissions have now been reviewed and sorted into priority tiers.<\/p>\n
So far, more than 42,000 students in the highest priority group, Tier 1 applicants and their siblings, have already been awarded funding and notified. That includes 27,050 Tier 1 students and 15,592 siblings.<\/p>\n
Program leaders say all eligible Tier 1 applicants and their siblings will receive funding, totaling approximately $415 million.<\/p>\n
However, tens of thousands of families are still waiting to learn their status.<\/p>\n
72,927 Tier 2 students are awaiting the lottery, awards, or placement on a waitlist <\/p>\n
66,119 Tier 3 students are awaiting lottery and waitlisting <\/p>\n
66,950 Tier 4 students are also awaiting lottery and waitlisting <\/p>\n
Tier 4 applicants are further divided into:<\/p>\n
13,246 students who attended public school during the 2024\u201325 school year <\/p>\n
53,704 students who attended private school during the same period <\/p>\n
Additionally, 25,400 applications were deemed ineligible.<\/p>\n
TEFA officials announced that the next phase of the process is now underway, with a lottery for Tier 2 students set to begin this week. Award notifications will follow.<\/p>\n
In a message to families, the TEFA team acknowledged the overwhelming demand and limited funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we are not able to fund every applicant, we are committed to keeping you informed throughout the process and ensuring transparency in how awards are distributed,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n
Families are encouraged to review the program\u2019s lottery process and frequently asked questions online as the next round of selections begins.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 The rollout of Texas\u2019 new Education Freedom Account program is off to a high-demand start, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[163,66,223,62428,27,17870,29,28],"class_list":["post-269948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-education","tag-local","tag-news","tag-tefa-program","tag-texas","tag-texas-education-freedom-accounts","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269948","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=269948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}