It’s back-to-school season, which means school buses are back out on the streets, students are purchasing supplies, and tuition is due, not only at colleges, but also at private primary schools. Considering that the average K-12 private school tuition is about the same as in-state tuition at most public universities, today, let’s talk about the business of K-12 private schools.
Attending private school
The latest data shows that there were about 5.4 million students attending K-12 private schools in 2021, which accounted for about 10% of primary school-age children in the United States. These rates vary by state, with private school being considerably more common in the northeast in states such as New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, and less common in western states such as Arizona and Wyoming.
Throughout the country there are over 29,000 K-12 private schools with about three-quarters of those schools having a religious affiliation, most commonly Catholic, which accounts for 33.2% of all private enrollment. A common selling point for private schools is that they are more likely to have a smaller student population, with 44.1% of schools enrolling fewer than 300 students compared to 9.8% of public schools.
The most obvious difference between public and private schools is the cost. While parents do not have to pay additional fees to send their child to a public high school, it costs parents an average of $16,420 to send their teenager to a private high school in 2021. For comparison, public school spending averaged $14,358 per pupil the same year.
Of course, not all private schools are expensive, as the average is weighted by some schools that charge upwards of $50,000 a year or more. In fact, many private schools have annual tuition rates that would be considered affordable, such as the Wynfield Christian Academy in Georgia, which costs $1,400 a year, and the Columbia Christian Academy in New York, which charges students $1,500 annually. According to the data, Catholic schools actually have a lower average tuition ($9,720) than non-religious affiliated schools ($19,590). Either way, how parents pay for their child’s education is an interesting business angle to consider, especially when private education is often partially funded with public tax dollars.
Funding private school with public money
The governor of New York recently announced that it will be the 30th state to opt in to the Education Freedom Tax Credit (EFTC), which was a part of the omnibus federal spending bill passed last year. Starting Jan. 1, 2027, this tax credit allows taxpayers to claim up to $1,700 in contributions to Scholarship Granting Organizations that then, in turn, fund scholarships and other educational expenses for individual families. Supporters of the decision note that it allows “more families the chance to pursue a quality education for their children.”
The EFTC is just one of numerous options across the country that uses public money to assist parents in sending their child to a private school of their choice. While some voucher programs are designed specifically for students with needs that may not be available at their local public school, such as for students with developmental disabilities, others are universal for any child. Arizona is one of the states that has not yet opted into the EFTC, but it already has a universal voucher program that gives parents up to “90% of the state’s per-student funding.” The typical voucher in the state is between $7,000-$8,000 per student funded.
However, critics of spending public money on private school vouchers consider the ETFC, and other similar programs, a way to “ramp up school segregation,” as private school enrollment has historically been disproportionately white and wealthy. In fact, many similar tuition programs were created in the years following the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that desegregated schools. For example, in 1965, Alabama’s legislature approved $3.75 million (the equivalent of about $36 million today) for students “to attend private schools rather than go to public school classes with [Black students].” Similar programs helped private schools flourish across the South. A ProPublica investigation in 2024 found that about 300 schools that likely began as a way to circumvent desegregation laws in the South still operate in the region today, many funded through such vouchers.
