Texas Public Policy Foundation just published a “Policy Perspective” authored by Brooke Terry. (Download link below.) She researched all the tuition tax credit programs in the nation!
Highlights:
Ten states have a total of 14 education tax credit or deduction programs.
There are typically two types of education tax credits:
1. Personal-use tax credits, which reimburse parents for educational expenses spent on their children, and
2. Donation tax credits, which give a tax credit to individuals or corporations who donate to an education scholarship fund.
Tax credit programs have been [legally] challenged multiple times, but have never been ruled unconstitutional in any state or federal court case.
In the 2008 Education Next/Harvard PEPG Survey of Public Opinion, [survey respondents were] asked if they would support tax credits for educational expenses…[for] students attend both private and public schools…Hispanics were the biggest supporters at 75 percent, with African-Americans at 73 percent, the nation as a whole at 64 percent, and Caucasians at 61 percent.
Even public school teachers showed general support for tax credit programs… Sixty-five percent of public school teachers said they would support tax credits that could be applied to both private and public school expenses; only 17 percent opposed the initiative.
Education tax credit bills have passed in [states,] where one if not both chambers are controlled by Democrats. In Florida… both political parties supported a $30 million expansion of [an existing tax credit program] including “a majority of African-American legislators, all Hispanic legislators, and one-third of the entire Democratic caucus.” … Maryland’s Democratic Senate approved a tax credit bill by a margin of almost 2-to-1.
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