The Utah Legislature doubled the size of the Utah Fits All Scholarship this year.
Last year’s landmark bill House Bill 215 established the Utah Fits All Scholarship. This allows parents to decide how a portion of the state’s public education budget should be utilized.
This development arose after the Utah Education Fits All (UEFA), an advocacy group for the Utah Fits All Scholarship, was able to show the Utah legislature that their initial investment would not completely cover the demand for the Utah Fits All Scholarship.
While over 30,000 students were represented on the EUFA lists, the scholarship fund from last year only had enough to cover about 5,000 of those students.
Hearing that demand, the legislature doubled the funding for the scholarship which made it possible for 10,000 students to get funded through the scholarship.
In addition to the extra funding, House Bill 529 from Representative Pierucci expanded eligibility for the scholarship. While every Utah student was already eligible in last year’s bill, this year’s bill expanded the scholarship to include military families living in Utah as well as and Utah military members who are assigned outside of Utah.
Families in the process of adopting foster children are also included in this bill.
This expansion is exciting, and we are looking forward to how the legislature further expands the scholarship in the future.
Education Policy Analyst
Jon is the Education Policy Analyst at Libertas Institute. He previously taught fifth and sixth grade and served as an elementary principal in Weber School District for 14 years.