I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that we may be approaching one of the most consequential moments in the history of Catholic education in this country.
Beginning January 1, a new federal education tax credit will allow taxpayers to contribute up to $1,700 (and up to $3,400 for married couples filing jointly) to an approved Scholarship Granting Organization and receive that amount back as a dollar-for-dollar credit against their federal income taxes.
In the simplest terms, if you have at least $1,700 in federal income-tax liability, you could contribute $1,700 for scholarships and receive a $1,700 federal tax credit.
You give $1,700 to help a child attend a school like CBA. You get $1,700 back through the federal tax credit. Your cost can effectively be $0.
The opportunity created for a young person could be life-changing.
That is what makes this extraordinary.
If New York chooses to participate, these contributions could provide scholarships to well-qualified students whose families might otherwise believe a CBA education is beyond their reach.
And the families who could qualify may surprise you.
Eligibility extends to households earning up to 300% of the area median income. Using current federal figures, that is roughly $320,000 in annual household income in our area.
Think about what that means.
This could reach families living below the poverty line and middle-class families who have historically fallen into a difficult gap: earning too much to receive significant financial assistance, but not enough to comfortably afford tuition.
I think especially about families raising multiple children. They may deeply value Lasallian education and sacrifice tremendously to provide it. But multiply tuition by two, three, or four children, and something they desperately want for their family can become impossible.
For many of those families, what is possible may be about to change.
Every year, I stand in front of prospective families and make them a promise.
I tell them that CBA does not have unlimited financial resources. But if their child is a well-qualified student, we will do everything we can to make sure finances are not the reason that child cannot attend.
I mean it every time I say it.
Today, nearly half of our students receive some form of financial assistance, and CBA commits approximately $1.8 million each year to make this education accessible.
Still, there are families we cannot help enough.
And there are undoubtedly many more who never ask.
They drive past CBA. They hear about our students. Perhaps they can picture their son or daughter here.
Then they see the tuition.
And the conversation ends before it ever begins.
Imagine if it did not have to.
Imagine a well-qualified student walking through our doors because a family discovered CBA was possible after all. That student finds teachers who know them, coaches and mentors who challenge them, friends who walk beside them, and a community committed to helping them discover who God is calling them to become.
And perhaps that entire journey begins because someone they may never meet chose to redirect $1,700 they otherwise would have paid in federal taxes to create that opportunity.
But possibility is not impact.
New York must first choose to participate. And if it does, what happens next will depend on all of us.
We will need alumni, parents, grandparents, friends, and others who believe in the power of education to participate. And we will need families who never thought CBA was possible to look again.
We will be ready to help both.
Because while the mechanism is new, the idea behind it is not.
More than 300 years ago, St. John Baptist de La Salle looked at a world in which a young person's circumstances too often determined the education they could receive and, ultimately, the life they could build.
He refused to accept that.
So he opened doors.
More than three centuries later, we may be given an extraordinary opportunity to open those doors wider.
But an open door only matters if someone walks through it.
If New York says yes, what happens next will depend on donors willing to create opportunity, families willing to imagine that CBA might be possible, and all of us recognizing what this moment could mean.
If you would consider using the tax credit to help open the doors of CBA to another young person, please take 30 seconds to complete our Tax Credit Interest Form. There is no commitment today. Your interest will help us prepare so that, if New York opts in, CBA is ready from the very first day.
Years from now, the most important measure of this opportunity will not be how many dollars were contributed or how many tax credits were claimed.
It will be the young people who walked through doors they once believed were closed.
Mr. Matthew Keough
President, Christian Brothers Academy
