Education

Brandon Dutcher: Oklahoma's budget hole could be $1 billion deeper

April 19, 2016

Brandon Dutcher

In the Tulsa World this last weekend, OCPA’s Brandon Dutcher wrote about the fiscal impacts of educational choice programs, pointing to the cost savings happening for choice programs at the higher-ed level.

For example, the Oklahoma Tuition Equalization Grant — which is nearly identical in structure to Oklahoma’s private-school voucher program in common education (the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship) — is a modest $2,000 grant for students enrolling in private colleges. Created with strong bipartisan support in 2003, the grant has saved taxpayers more than $50 million, according to Oklahoma Independent Colleges and Universities.

You can read Dutcher’s entire op-ed here.

You can also read another analysis of the fiscal impacts of school choice here.

And finally, you can find OCPA research fellow Steve Anderson's spreadsheet showing Oklahoma's current spending per student here.