Education - Education Savings

The Act permits some current students or prospective kindergarteners attending a public school ranked in the bottom 25% by the Georgia Department of Education to apply for a $6,500 grant toward qualified education expenses, including some homeschooling expenses and private school tuition. These grants will only be made available when the state’s obligations under the Quality Basic Education (QBE) Act are fully funded. The Act establishes a Georgia Education Savings Authority (GESA) under the Georgia Student Finance Commission to administer the program. It provides for a parent review committee to review education expenses and certain decisions by the GESA.

The State Board of Education must provide a procedure whereby a student may transfer to any other public school system willing to receive the student, and the receiving school system may only charge tuition equivalent to the system’s local revenue per student. The Act reweights the QBE Formula and expands the available tax credit for qualified donations to nonprofit education providers.