Tuition info had been lacking
Media had been seeking information, public record requests had been stymied and at least one lawmaker had been blocked in his attempts to retrieve data on the state’s new tuition grant program.
Finally, perhaps because of talk of a lawsuit by state Rep. Caleb Hemmer, D-Nashville, the Tennessee Department of Education has released initial numbers on Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship program.
The first year of the $146 million program appears to have progressed as its designers would have hoped, with all 20,000 available scholarships being reserved (10,000 for income-eligible students and 10,000 for non income-eligible students).
The divide between the applications for income-eligible and non income-eligible students was remarkable, with 21,663 non income-eligible families and 21,164 income-eligible families applying. In essence, only 2,800 families who applied — and all were considered in the order in which they were received — were not awarded scholarships.