Vermont’s new education law signals an end to state funding for religious schools

Since 2021, religious schools in Vermont have been receiving an increasing amount of money through Vermont’s school tuitioning program. But Act 73, Vermont’s wide-ranging education reform law signed into law in July, effectively halts that trend.

Last week, the state Agency of Education finalized a list of 18 private schools (called independent schools under state law) that remain eligible for the public tuition dollars under the new law’s provisions. Students who were already enrolled in ineligible schools prior to the law’s passing can continue receiving public dollars until they graduate.

Vermont’s public tuition system allows families in districts without a public school for certain grades to use public dollars to send their children to public or private schools elsewhere.

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