Governor Walz' budget proposal, which shapes legislator discussion of the state budget, completely eliminates nonpublic student pupil aid and transportation as designated under Minnesota law for the past 50+ years.
This nonpublic student pupil aid goes to services such as busing, textbooks, school nursing, guidance counseling, and educational technology, among other services.
If state funding to nonpublic schooling options is cut, tuition costs will be raised for all students in these nonpublic schools. The lowest income students and families attending these schools will bear the burden of the raised costs, removing education options for the most vulnerable members of our community.
Minnesota families already fund public education through our state taxpayer dollars. Cutting nonpublic pupil aid now, especially when some estimates of Minnesota's waste, fraud, and abuse in our state government administration is tallying about $500 million (and increasing), is a serious mistake by the Walz administration, placing the burden on Minnesota's lowest income families who are seeking education alternatives.
Watch the hearing in Senate Education Finance Committee on February 5, 2025, in which leaders from various nonpublic Minnesota schools testified on how the elimination of nonpublic pupil aid would affect their schools.
See Governor Walz' budget proposal, pages 75-79.
