School leaders celebrate ‘success' of private school tax credits, governor pushes for expansion
Students, parents and educators gathered at Oklahoma's state Capitol to celebrate the "success" of a private school tax credit program on March 12, 2025. (Photo by Emma Murphy/Oklahoma Voice)
OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma's governor called for the expansion of the state's private school tax credit program at a rally Wednesday celebrating its implementation.
Gov. Kevin Stitt, who spoke at the rally attended by about 200 students, parents and educators, said it's time to remove the spending cap for Oklahoma's Parental Tax Credit program. The cap is currently at $200 million for the 2025 tax year and will increase to the maximum of $250 million, as set by state law, for the 2026 tax year.
The program, which was created in 2023, offers a maximum credit of $7,500 to families sending their children to private schools in Oklahoma. The program received over 31,000 applications for the 2025-26 school year on the first day of applications.
'There's so many great jobs out here,' Stitt said. 'I'm trying to make sure that every kid has more internships, more apprenticeships, and has more access to what's possible. Because God uniquely makes every single person differently with different desires and abilities, and it's our job as leaders to make sure we can point them in the right direction.'
Senate Bill 229 from Sen. Julie Daniels, R-Bartlesville, would have removed the spending cap but did not make it out of its assigned Senate committee this session.
The Republican governor said he would like the Legislature to ensure that recipients of the tax credit don't have it taken away next year. Stitt said he wants to see people 'grandfathered in' so families don't have to reapply for the tax credit.
The program has faced increased scrutiny in recent weeks amid reports that just over 45% of tax credit's spring semester recipients were from households that earned more than $150,000 a year, according to a January analysis by the Oklahoma Tax Commission. More than a quarter of participating households earned over $250,000 a year, the program's highest income bracket.
Ed Gray, a parent of a student at Trinity School in Oklahoma City, said the tax credit and scholarships are the reason he is able to afford his son's tuition.
'I did it because it was the best situation for my son and as a single parent, being extremely busy at work, I did not have time to navigate the requirements for scholarships or other credits,' he said. '… Today, my son's tuition is almost fully covered by these programs, and he has continued eligibility.'
James Timberlake, the executive director of the Council of Oklahoma Private Education, said the tax credit program is 'working' and has given working families the chance to send their children to schools that 'align with their values.'
'Since then, more than 27,000 students have been approved for the tax credit program,' he said. 'The largest group of those students, some 16,445 to be exact, are those families who are in the priority household income tax brackets.'
The 'priority' applicants include households earning up to $150,000 per year. Any households past this threshold receive the tax credit on a first-come-first-serve basis.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Insider
28 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Trump's $1,000 baby bonus idea takes a leaf out of Warren Buffett's wealth-building playbook
President Donald Trump wants the next generation of Americans to be stock investors from birth — an idea that could easily have come from Warren Buffett. The US leader's so-called Trump Accounts are part of his proposed " One Big Beautiful Bill," a huge package of tax and spending legislation that's been approved by the House of Representatives and is now under Senate scrutiny. If passed, the government would open a tax-deferred investment account for every newborn citizen born between January 1, 2025 and December 31, 2028, and seed it with $1,000. Each child's guardian would be in charge of their account, able to deposit up to $5,000 a year into it, and allowed to invest in broad US index funds that don't use leverage and minimize fees and expenses. Withdrawals wouldn't be allowed until the age of 18, and the account would automatically terminate when the holder is 31. "This will afford a generation of children the chance to experience the miracle of compounded growth and set them on a course for prosperity from the very beginning," the White House said on its website, highlighting endorsements from the CEOs of Dell, Goldman Sachs, Uber, and Altimeter Capital. The bosses of Arm, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Robinhood have also signaled they're willing to contribute to the Trump Accounts of their employees' children. 'Start young' Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, has long recommended investing from a young age in a low-fee, broad-market index fund and holding for the long run as the most reliable way to build wealth over a lifetime. "Start young," Buffett told a shareholder who asked how to become a multibillionaire during Berkshire's 1999 meeting. He explained that "the nature of compound interest is it behaves like a snowball of sticky snow. And the trick is to have a very long hill, which means either starting very young or living to be very old." Buffett, whose net worth now exceeds $150 billion, said at the 2001 meeting that saving $10,000 by the time he turned 21 gave him a "huge, huge headstart" in life. It meant he could afford to get married and have kids while still having spare money to invest. "While he hasn't commented directly on government-funded stock accounts for newborns, the investing logic behind such a proposal aligns with his core principles," Lawrence Cunningham, the author of "The Essays of Warren Buffett" and the director of the University of Delaware's Weinberg Center, told Business Insider. "Buffett would likely agree that giving more Americans a long-term stake in the market — especially through low-cost vehicles like the S&P 500 — is both financially sound and socially beneficial," Cunningham said. The Berkshire chief, who bought his first stock at age 11, turns 95 in August, meaning he's been compounding his wealth for more than eight decades. Buffett has repeatedly said more than 99% of his wealth is in Berkshire stock, which he's owned since the 1960s. 'Eighth wonder' David Kass, a finance professor who's been following Buffett closely for nearly 40 years, told BI that Trump's program could help to reduce wealth inequality by "encouraging additional savings, providing more of a safety net, promoting financial literacy, and exposing everyone to a stake in corporate America while experiencing the 'eighth wonder of the world' — compounding." Berkshire declined to comment. It's worth noting that even if the program launched as planned and every American child owns a piece of the stock market from birth, lower-income parents might struggle to invest the maximum $5,000 a year into the account, allowing kids with more affluent parents to quickly pull ahead. Children from wealthier families might also have additional savings accounts and assets, other advantages such as access to better healthcare and education, and significant inheritances in their future, limiting the potential for a single government payout and account to narrow the wealth gap. Yet Buffett might still see the plan as a step in the right direction. He has long heralded compounding over decades as the secret to wealth creation, as it can turn even a small amount into a fortune. For example, a $1,000 investment that compounds at 8% annually for 65 years would be worth nearly $160,000.
Yahoo
44 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Cynthia Lummis Proposes Artificial Intelligence Bill, Requiring AI Firms to Disclose Technicals
Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) has introduced the Responsible Innovation and Safe Expertise (RISE) Act of 2025, a legislative proposal designed to clarify liability frameworks for artificial intelligence (AI) used by professionals. The bill could bring transparency from AI developers – stoping short of requiring models to be open source. In a press release, Lummis said the RISE Act would mean that professionals, such as physicians, attorneys, engineers, and financial advisors, remain legally responsible for the advice they provide, even when it is informed by AI systems. At the time, AI developers who create the systems can only shield themselves from civil liability when things go awry if they publicly release model cards. The proposed bill defines model cards as detailed technical documents that disclose an AI system's training data sources, intended use cases, performance metrics, known limitations, and potential failure modes. All this is intended to help help professionals assess whether the tool is appropriate for their work. "Wyoming values both innovation and accountability; the RISE Act creates predictable standards that encourage safer AI development while preserving professional autonomy,' Lummis said in a press release. 'This legislation doesn't create blanket immunity for AI," Lummis continued. However, the immunity granted under this Act has clear boundaries. The legislation excludes protection for developers in instances of recklessness, willful misconduct, fraud, knowing misrepresentation, or when actions fall outside the defined scope of professional usage. Additionally, developers face a duty of ongoing accountability under the RISE Act. AI documentation and specifications must be updated within 30 days of deploying new versions or discovering significant failure modes, reinforcing continuous transparency obligations. The RISE Act, as it's written now, stops short of mandating that AI models become fully open source. Developers can withhold proprietary information, but only if the redacted material isn't related to safety, and each omission is accompanied by a written justification explaining the trade secret exemption. In a prior interview with CoinDesk, Simon Kim, the CEO of Hashed, one of Korea's leading VC funds, spoke about the danger of centralized, closed-source AI that's effectively a black box. "OpenAI is not open, and it is controlled by very few people, so it's quite dangerous. Making this type of [closed source] foundational model is similar to making a 'god', but we don't know how it works," Kim said at the time.
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
Why these college students are wary of the GOP megabill
Why these college students are wary of the GOP megabill Congressional Republicans are proposing big changes to college financial aid programs. One vocal group of students is pushing back. Show Caption Hide Caption Senators grill Education Secretary Linda McMahon over proposed cuts Education Secretary Linda McMahon testified to Congress over proposed budget cuts. WASHINGTON – Emi Glass had one thing on her mind when she was applying to college: cost. Footing the bill for a degree was never a foregone conclusion for her, growing up in a single-parent household in Kettering, Ohio. In between shifts at the local Dairy Queen, she poured hundreds of hours into applications for a wide range of schools and scholarships. She worried about where she would go, and more importantly, if she'd be able to pay for it. Those worries vanished when she was accepted to Yale University. The Ivy League school in Connecticut offers some of the most generous financial aid in the country to lower-income students. Between federal grants, outside scholarships and financial aid directly from Yale, going to college suddenly seemed affordable. 'I'm living out a dream that once felt unattainable for me,' said Glass, now 21, standing outside the U.S. Capitol on June 12. She came to Washington with a group of other college students, many from similar financial circumstances, to bring attention to the financial aid implications of President Donald Trump's so-called 'Big, Beautiful Bill' for low-income students. 'For students like me, financial aid isn't just helpful,' said another student, Jackson Howe, 21, a rising senior at West Virginia University. 'It's essential.' The students were in the nation's capital to lobby congressional Republicans to oppose new taxes on university endowments and changes to federal student loan programs. As part of the GOP's efforts to get Trump's major domestic policy bill across the finish line this summer, lawmakers are considering a slew of reforms to funding for higher education. One aggressive legislative package, which already passed the U.S. House of Representatives, would significantly curb eligibility for Pell Grants (federal subsidies that help low-income people pay for college) and fine schools for leaving students with debt. Read more about the House bill: Republicans propose massive overhaul of student loans, Pell Grants The other package, which was published by a U.S. Senate committee on June 10, takes a more measured approach. Still, it would make big changes, including cutting the number of student debt repayment plans to just two (which the House bill also suggests) and imposing new caps on borrowing. Read more about the Senate bill: Major student loan changes just came one step closer to becoming law Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, chair of the Senate committee overseeing education, said his chamber's bill would save taxpayers at least $300 billion and make higher education more affordable. 'We need to fix our broken higher education system,' he said in a statement. 'While Biden and Democrats unfairly attempted to shift student debt onto taxpayers that chose not to go to college, Republicans are taking on the root causes of the student debt crisis to lower the cost of tuition and improve Americans' access to opportunities that set them up for success.' The Senate package includes several provisions with bipartisan support. One measure, which would yank financial aid funding from certain college programs that provide a poor return on investment, has been pushed for years by a former high-ranking official in the Obama administration. Some Democrats also agree with a provision that would expand Pell Grants to weekslong training programs in fields like welding and cosmetology, even though consumer protection advocates warn that doing so without the right guardrails could lead to fraud. Endowment taxlooms Among the chief concerns for the students rallying outside the Capitol on June 12 were new taxes on university endowments. Those penalties, which would primarily hurt some of the richest schools in the country, could force institutions like Yale to pay upwards of $700 million a year to the government. Read more: With a war on Harvard raging, religious colleges get big tax break in Trump spending bill Republicans such as Missouri Rep. Jason Smith, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, say the provision would hold 'woke, elite universities that operate more like major corporations and other tax-exempt entities accountable, ensuring they can no longer abuse generous benefits provided through the tax code.' Cayla Waddington, 18, a rising sophomore at Yale, worries the tax could force schools like hers to pull back on their financial aid commitments, which can be supported in part by endowment funds. 'I pay next to nothing for my Yale education, thanks to their endowment,' she said. 'There are thousands of us across the country who share the same story.' Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@ Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @
