U.S. taxpayer money sends kids to religious schools (Washington Post)

Today's news:

"Billions in taxpayer dollars are being used to pay tuition at religious schools throughout the country, as state voucher programs expand dramatically and the line separating public education and religion fades.

School vouchers can be used at almost any private school, but the vast majority of the money is being directed to religious schools, according to a Washington Post examination of the nation’s largest voucher programs."

— "Billions in taxpayer dollars now go to religious schools via vouchers: The rapid expansion of state voucher programs follows court decisions that have eroded the separation between church and state." Laura Meckler and Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post, June 3, 2024

On a Mission From God: Inside the Movement to Redirect Billions of Taxpayer Dollars to Private Religious Schools by Alec MacGillis, ProPublica, Jan. 13, 2025

Update, under Trump:

"The attempted closing of the Department of Education - threatening services to students with disabilities, access to college for low-income kids, and decimating empirical research into what works in education - is just the beginning.

The real goal of the radical right is a cash grab.

They want our tax dollars to subsidize their religious private schools.

That’s why they’ve introduced the Educational Choice for Children Act - a $10 billion giveaway to private schools."

— Fish Stark, Executive Director, American Humanist Association, email on March 28, 2025. Read more.

Stephen Miller: "Children will be taught to love America … As we close the Dept of Education and provide funding to states, we're going to make sure these funds are not being used to promote communist ideology."

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— Democracy Action Network (@democracyactionnet.bsky.social) September 20, 2025 at 11:00 AM

On November 22, 2025, Melina Cohen sent this email from American Atheists:

"...MAGA's “One Big Beautiful Bill” placed caps on student borrowing—up to $100,000 for graduate students and $200,000 for professional programs. Instead of investing in the professionalization of education as more successful nations have, the U.S Department of Education announced it will be divesting by redefining which post-baccalaureate degrees qualify as “professional.”

Among the soon-to-be “unprofessional” fields: Education, nursing, counseling, social work, occupational and physical therapy, public health and health administration, audiology, speech-language pathology, arts, and more. The reclassification, effective next July, will impact an inestimable number of current and future students by restricting their access to federal loans and loan forgiveness programs.

Almost all of these professions are already in critically short supply across the country. If prospective students are denied the aid necessary to pursue advanced training, they won’t. And so it follows they won't become the qualified professionals our school and health care systems desperately need—especially in rural communities and underserved urban areas.

It probably did not escape your notice that most of these fields are dominated by women. But I neglected to mention: Theology does still qualify for $200,000. So, never fear: Our schools may be emptied of mental health professionals, but at least we’ll have chaplains! (If you’d like to learn how deprofessionalization relates to Christian Nationalism, check out this piece.)"