There is work to do, but the foundation has been laid— and for the first time, tuition relief for parents feels within reach
As the nation was fixated on the drama surrounding the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and its volley through the House, then the Senate, then back to the House and finally to the Oval Office, many in the Orthodox community were hyper-focused on one specific provision within the bill that would create a new dollar-for-dollar tax credit for donations made to scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs).
The organizations would then use the donations to provide parents with scholarships to cover educational expenses, including private school tuition. The passage of the provision, known as the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA), was historic by any measure: For the first time, the federal government of the United States has now passed a school choice bill.
How the program unfolds will depend on a number of still-unknown factors. Here’s what we do know.
The credit per individual taxpayer for contributing to an SGO was lowered to $1,700 (down from the originally proposed 10% of any taxpayer’s income). But that setback was more than offset by a much larger benefit. In previous versions of the bill, the total allocation of credits available nationwide was capped: In the first draft, the credits were capped nationwide at $10 billion; the first draft of the budget bill reduced it to $5 billion for four years, and the Senate further slashed it to just $4 billion each year. But the language that was ultimately signed into law removed any nationwide cap.
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