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(Iowa) -- Enrollment is up at Catholic School across Iowa.
As of October of last year, Catholic schools saw an enrollment increase of about 3% from October of 2024 to a total of 20,096 students. Tom Chapman, executive director of the Iowa Catholic Conference, says the increased enrollment is due in large part to the state's new education savings account (ESA) program:
"We think it's because of the new education savings account program. We expected to see some increases, and I think we've seen that. I think the good news is it's also meant that people who are lower income have more opportunity to participate, more opportunity to go to a Catholic school."
98% of Iowa's Catholic school students, 25,519 in total, used an ESA.