There is work to do, but the foundation has been laid — and for the first time, tuition relief for parents feels within reach

What Happened

As the nation was fixated on the drama surrounding the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and its volley through the House, then the Senate, then back to the House and finally to the Oval Office, many in the Orthodox community were hyper-focused on one specific provision within the bill that would create a new dollar-for-dollar tax credit for donations made to scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs).

The organizations would then use the donations to provide parents with scholarships to cover educational expenses, including private school tuition. The passage of the provision, known as the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA), was historic by any measure: For the first time, the federal government of the United States has now passed a school choice bill.

How the program unfolds will depend on a number of still-unknown factors. Here’s what we do know.

How Much

The credit per individual taxpayer for contributing to an SGO was lowered to $1,700 (down from the originally proposed 10% of any taxpayer’s income). But that setback was more than offset by a much larger benefit. In previous versions of the bill, the total allocation of credits available nationwide was capped: In the first draft, the credits were capped nationwide at $10 billion; the first draft of the budget bill reduced it to $5 billion for four years, and the Senate further slashed it to just $4 billion each year. But the language that was ultimately signed into law removed any nationwide cap.

Thus, while the credit per individual taxpayer is only a fraction of what it was when the bill was proposed, the total nationwide credits available are unlimited, setting the stage for a potentially game-changing tuition landscape for parents.

The original version of ECCA allowed for larger tax credits to individual donors, but limited the total credits available nationwide. The final bill flipped that model: Now, each individual can only give up to $1,700, but there’s no cap to the credits available. That means the success of the program now depends on broad, grassroots fundraising — getting thousands of regular donors to step up. The more donations the scholarship organizations receive, the more scholarships they can give out. There’s no cap on how much any one family can receive.

What It Means for Parents

Families with an income level lower than 300 percent of an area’s median income can receive scholarships from the SGOs. In Ocean County, New Jersey — which encompasses Lakewood, Toms River, Jackson, and Manchester, and is home to more than 50,000 Orthodox Jewish students attending private schools — the median income is over $130,000. Thus, a family whose combined income is lower than $390,900 can be awarded a scholarship. In Brooklyn, New York, the cutoff for a family to be eligible for a scholarship would be an annual income of $283,200.

Birth Pangs

The bill was first introduced in July 2022 by Senator Bill Cassidy (R–LA) and Representative Adrian Smith (R–NE). Initially, the proposal featured a per-taxpayer cap of 10% of income, and an annual nationwide cap of $10 billion in available tax credits.

As expected, the bill stalled in committee during the 117th Congress and again during the early months of the 118th, without even making it to the full floor for a vote. That wasn’t as much of a setback as it was an expectation: With Democrats controlling the Senate, there was little possibility that the legislation would actually become law.

But advocates were setting the stage for 2024 in the hope that Republicans could pull off a trifecta — control of the House, Senate, and White House. That would offer a real possibility of ECCA being signed into law. The election turned out to be the decisive victory ECCA proponents had hoped for, reviving interest in the bill as part of the broader Republican education agenda.

Since Republican majorities in both chambers were narrow, the most realistic way of getting ECCA to the president’s desk was including it in the reconciliation bill (a specialized bill that advances budget-related provisions and that can’t be filibustered in the Senate). Ambitious and politically charged measures — like ECCA — are often folded into reconciliation bills to improve their chances of passage. In a sharply divided Congress, such as the current one, it remains the most realistic path for enacting significant policy change.

President Trump urged Congress to package his ambitious agenda — tax cuts, Medicaid work requirements, “MAGA” baby accounts, and increased immigration spending — in one massive reconciliation bill, “One Big Beautiful Bill,” so that it could actually pass Congress. Lobbyists and special interest groups went into overdrive to get their proposals into the final draft of the bill.

When lawmakers released the draft of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) earlier this year, ECCA was included, elating supporters. As the OBBB moved through both chambers, ECCA underwent significant modifications. The House’s version put an annual national limit on total credits at $5 billion, and sought to sunset the program in four years. The Senate lowered the annual limit to $4 billion — but removed the sunset provision, effectively making the program permanent.

Last-Minute Drama

With just a week to go before the Republicans’ self-imposed deadline of getting the OBBA to the president for July 4, ECCA’s prospects looked bright.

On the Friday before Independence Day, Agudah’s Rabbi A.D. Motzen heard rumors that ECCA was being challenged by the Senate Parliamentarian — the chamber’s compliance officer who makes sure no extraneous provisions are included in the reconciliation package. A few hours into the day, their worst fears were confirmed: ECCA was stripped from the bill, having been deemed noncompliant with Senate rules.

It was a challenge no one had anticipated, and a seemingly insurmountable one. While overruling the Senate Parliamentarian is procedurally possible, it’s extremely rare, as it requires a separate vote and an unspoken rule not to erode the ostensibly nonpartisan rule enforcement. Sponsors of the bill threw up their hands, resigning themselves to the opportunity of a lifetime slipping away. Agudah staffers headed into Shabbos full of uncertainty.

But one lawmaker wasn’t giving up the fight. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, never one to shy away from taking a stand, became the knight in shining armor. He met with the Parliamentarian and her staff, demanding an explanation while vigorously defending inclusion of ECCA in the reconciliation package. Shortly before Shabbos ended, a compromise was reached: ECCA would stay, but the individual credits would be capped at $1,700 per taxpayer, and states would have to formally “opt in” to the program. In exchange, the nationwide cap was removed.

As Hashgachah would have it, a staffer for Mr. Cruz who was growing in her observance of Judaism met Agudah’s Yossie Charner in the Senate late on Friday afternoon as he raced from office to office in a desperate bid to salvage the bill. She needed a place for Shabbos, and Charner invited her to spend the day with his family in nearby Baltimore. As soon as Shabbos ended, everyone powered back on their phones — and she happily informed a relieved Charner that a modified version ECCA would survive, after all.

A bill five years in the works had been drastically altered in just 48 hours, but the main thing was that it would be signed into law. The drama was over and the following steps followed in quick succession: The Senate approved the bill with a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Vance; the Senate version went to the House, where, after the usual suspects threatened to block it, the bill passed by a razor-thin confirmation.

The next day, lawmakers gathered under the brilliant blue sky on the South Lawn of the White House and to joyful music played by the US Marine Corps Band, President Donald J. Trump signed the legislation into law.

Going Forward

ECCA is now the law of the land, but parents won’t feel the relief right away. The tax credits take effect January 1, 2027, and a few points have to be ironed out before then. For example, one of the requirements the Parliamentarian insisted on is that each individual state has to “opt in” to ECCA and approve of the SGOs. As New York and New Jersey are both holding gubernatorial elections before 2027, any talks with those statehouses on which SGOs will be approved will be moot by the time the program is effective. The SGOs in each state need to be created and set up with the proper accounting and legal framework. The Treasury Department and IRS have to clarify certain rules that Congress left ambiguous.

There is work to do, but the foundation has been laid — and for the first time, tuition relief for parents feels within reach.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1069)