Over 1640 Applications From Students In Northwest Iowa Counties For ESAs For PRIVATE School

Des Moines, Iowa — New data shows that 1647 applications for Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) have been received from the four northwesternmost Iowa counties. The ESAs provide state funding for the student to attend private school.

The data shows 19.5 percent of the applications in the state are for students who live in the two largest counties in the Des Moines metro. But a significant number of applications come from our area as well.

From Sioux County, 1,183 applications were received. There were 250 O’Brien County applications. The state received 196 applications from Lyon County and 18 from Osceola County.

By last Friday, 18,627 Education Savings Account applications had been approved. About a thousand applications are pending, waiting on a parent or guardian to confirm their annual income is at or below 300 percent of the federal poverty line. Data released by the Iowa Department of Education shows how many approved applications came from each county. Over 3100 are for residents in Iowa’s largest county, Polk County, and about 500 more were for private school students who live in neighboring Dallas County. Just over six percent of approved applications came from northwest Iowa’s Sioux County, which is Iowa’s 19th largest county. Linn County — the Cedar Rapids-Marion metro — accounted for about seven percent of the approved ESA applications.

While applications have been approved, parents have to secure enrollment in a private school for their child and the state will announce this fall how many of the state-funded accounts have been activated. A previous state report indicated about 60 percent of the applications for the $7600 in state funding were for students already enrolled in private school. There are only three counties where no state-funded Education Savings Accounts applications have been approved. They are Decatur and Ringgold Counties along the Missouri border in southern Iowa, and Louisa County along the Mississippi River in southeast Iowa.

As of August 4, students have been approved for ESAs in 96 of Iowa’s 99 counties.

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