Paying Twice for School? The Education Freedom Tax Credit Was Built for You

America’s education system was built for one type of student and one type of family. But not every child learns the same way, and not every family has the same needs.

There is a family whose child has special needs and is thriving in a specialized school. There is also a family that wants an education rooted in their faith and values. Or maybe there is the military family searching for stable options that do not uproot their child with every new set of orders. Or, the homeschool family doing all the work themselves, often without any support.

Each one of these families look different in almost every way. But they share one thing in common: they have been paying twice. Once in taxes that fund an education system that does not serve their children, and again in tuition, fees and materials for the school that does.

Four Families, One Shared Burden

Consider what each of these families is navigating.

A family with a child who has special needs often finds that the specialized instruction their child thrives with only exists outside their assigned public school, and that instruction comes at a cost the family carries alone.

A family seeking an education rooted in their faith and values often finds that option exists only in private tuition, paid on top of the taxes that already fund a public system they are not using.

A military family relocating with every new set of orders often finds that the one thing their child cannot afford to lose, a stable school, is the hardest thing to hold onto inside a public system tied to a zip code that keeps changing.

And a homeschool family teaching their own children often carries the full cost of curriculum and materials themselves, with none of the support a traditional classroom receives.

Four different families, four different reasons. One shared math problem: taxes paid into a system that is not built for their child, and a second payment, out of pocket, for the one that is.

What “Paying Twice” Actually Means

This is not a figure of speech. Every family pays into the public education system through their taxes, whether or not their child is enrolled in it. For families whose children are thriving somewhere else, in a specialized school, a faith-based school, a new school after a military move, or at their own kitchen table, that tax dollar funds a system their child does not use. The tuition, fees and materials for the education that actually works for their child come from a second, separate payment, entirely out of pocket.

That is the burden the Education Freedom Tax Credit (EFTC) is built to ease.

How the Education Freedom Tax Credit Helps

Starting in 2027, the EFTC gives donors a direct way to help reduce that burden for families like these.

Here is how it works.

You make a charitable donation to an approved Scholarship Granting Organization (SGO), like AFC Scholarship Fund. That donation funds a scholarship, and at filing, you receive a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit of up to $1,700.

AFC Scholarship Fund is built to provide dedicated funds to benefit the wider range of communities, students and families who are struggling to pay twice, including the special needs, faith-based, military and homeschool families this program was made for.

The Bottom Line

What connects all of these families is not their circumstances but their math, taxes paid into a system they are not using, and a second payment for the one that actually works. The EFTC does not erase that math. It gives donors a direct way to help ease it, starting in 2027.

The EFTC kicks off in 2027. Registering now means you will be ready the moment donations open.