Eyebrow: Texas ESA No-Gap Evidence Index · 2026–27 · Version 1.0

Private Schools With No Tuition Gap That Accept Texas ESA

By The School Choice Index Editorial Team · Published August 5, 2026 · Last verified August 5, 2026

The School Choice Index is an independent comparison and research resource for U.S. school choice programs. We are not affiliated with any school, the Texas Comptroller’s office, Odyssey, or the TEFA program.

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Yes — there are private schools with no tuition gap that accept Texas ESA funds, and we found and priced them. The Texas ESA, officially the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program or TEFA, provides a standard $10,474 award for an awarded student attending a participating private school in 2026–27. We checked participating campuses against that number and found 18 grade bands at six schools where published tuition is at or below the award, plus one near-miss grade band where tuition is $8 over. Best case: $4,882 remains after the published first-year costs we could price.

Now the part nobody tells you. Of those 18 tuition-fit grade bands, only five are ones where we could put a price on every published required charge and still fit inside the award under the payment option used in our calculation. One school has a $999 restricted ESA cushion on paper and a raffle that can still require up to $750 of personal cash if the tickets are not sold. Another fits through sixth grade and crosses the award in seventh.

Tuition covered is not the same thing as free. Here’s the whole bill.

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Where you stand right now — August 2026

Sources: official TEFA program page, TEFA Annual Demographic Report, Odyssey funding timeline, and the official participating-schools file.

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Which private schools with no tuition gap that accept Texas ESA did we verify for 2026–27?

A participating school has no tuition gap when its published tuition for your child’s grade is at or below your actual Texas ESA award. As of August 5, 2026, we verified 18 grade bands across six participating Texas private schools where published tuition sits at or below the standard $10,474 award. Five of those grade bands also fit once every published required charge in our model is added.

This is what you came for, so it goes first.

Every dollar figure below came off the school’s own published 2026–27 tuition page or PDF. We did not use tuition directories. One payment labeled a “down payment” is still part of tuition, not a new fee. One insurance percentage applies to tuition, not to the entire bill. Those details sound small until they move a family’s answer by hundreds of dollars.

The math assumes: full $10,474 award, first child, new student, no sibling or parish or staff discount, no financial aid, and the top of any published curriculum range. Optional costs like aftercare, meals, sports and field trips are left out. A plus sign means restricted award money remains after the modeled published costs. It does not mean cash back. A minus sign means the modeled cost exceeds the award.

Verified schools reviewed so far

Tuition and fees verified August 5, 2026 from each school’s own published 2026–27 materials. Exact campus participation was cross-checked against the state’s August 2 participating-schools file. Holy Spirit figures use the conservative non-parish rate. This is what we have reviewed so far, not a complete statewide list. Confirm the exact campus in the official TEFA School Finder and get your own number in writing before you sign anything.

The number that surprised us

Eighteen grade bands where tuition fits. Five where the complete published bill in our model fits.

That is the finding. Fortis in all three of its bands under the full-payment option, and Trinity in K3–K4 and K–5 under the annual-payment option. Everywhere else, something required either has no published price, cannot be paid with ESA money, or pushes the known bill over the award.

That is not a scandal. Schools have always had fees. But it means a list of “schools under $10,474” is only about 28% as complete as it looks when five of 18 tuition-fit rows have a fully priced published-cost result.

Read the status labels, not the plus signs

We do not put a green “free” badge on anything. Here is what each label actually means:

• Known published costs fit. Tuition plus every required charge we could price under the stated payment option lands under the award. Still confirm with the school.
• Final fee unpriced. Tuition and most fees fit, but at least one required charge has no published number. We show it as unknown, never as zero.
• Required items unpriced. Same thing, but for physical items such as uniforms, a device or a supply list.
• Mandatory non-TEFA obligation. A required obligation cannot be paid from the restricted ESA balance. Personal cash may still be needed.
• Margin too thin to call. Less than $150 remains. One unpriced item can erase it.
• Known-cost gap. Tuition may fit, but the modeled known bill does not.
• Tuition already exceeds the award. The base tuition crosses $10,474 before other first-year charges are added.

→ Run your actual award against these 19 reviewed rows — Zero-Gap Check →

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What does “no tuition gap” actually mean for a Texas ESA family?

“No tuition gap” means the school’s published tuition is at or below your child’s actual Texas ESA award. It does not mean every required fee is covered, that the school will wait for your ESA installments, that your child will be admitted, or that your family will pay nothing. Those are four separate questions with four separate answers.

Most pages treat this as one question. It is three, and they get progressively harder to prove.

Level 1 — No tuition gap. Published tuition is no more than your award. Eighteen of the 19 reviewed rows clear this bar.

Level 2 — No known required-cost gap. Tuition plus every required charge with a published price under the modeled payment option is no more than your award. Five of the 18 tuition-fit rows clear this one.

Level 3 — Zero out-of-pocket. Your family pays nothing for the school year. We are not going to claim this about any school, and neither should anyone else. It can only be established by a written, student-specific quote from the school using your actual award, rate, aid package, payment plan and required items. No public webpage can prove it for your family.

Anybody can copy Level 1. Level 2 required reading school rate cards line by line and refusing to count unknowns as zero. Level 3 is a conversation only you can finish, and we hand you the script farther down.

Four things move your number — and none of them are small

Here is what we learned building this. A tuition gap is not really a fact about a school. It is a fact about a family at a school in a specific grade and year.

1. Your child’s grade. Not a footnote. Trinity’s tuition fits in every grade it offers, but its known first-year bill fits through fifth grade and stops fitting in sixth under our annual-pay model. Greenville fits through sixth grade and crosses the award in seventh. Same school, same year, same rate card — different answer depending on which desk your kid sits in.
2. How many children you are enrolling. This one can flip the tuition result completely. Next section.
3. Whether you qualify for the member or parishioner rate. And what qualifying costs you, which most tuition summaries leave out.
4. Whether you were already receiving financial aid. This can determine whether the award actually lowers your family bill.

The grade cliff, in dollars

If your child is in fourth or fifth grade now, run the number for the grade they will enter in three years. Not just this year. That habit can keep you from discovering a new gap after you have already committed to the school.

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Why the same school can have no tuition gap for one family and not the one next door

Multi-child tuition rates can change whether tuition fits at all. At St. Patrick School in Dallas, published 2026–27 parishioner tuition for grades K–8 leaves a one-child family $426 short of the combined standard award, while the published family tuition is $48 below two awards and $822 below three awards — before the school’s separate mandatory fees. Same school, same rate card, same year.

We did not expect this. We found it doing arithmetic and checked it three times.

St. Patrick publishes its K–8 parishioner tuition by family size, and the rate includes its multi-child tuition scholarship:

The award is per child. The discount is built into the family rate. So the answer to “does tuition fit?” flips at the second child.

That does not make St. Patrick a no-known-cost-gap school. Its published fee schedule also includes per-child enrollment, technology and activity charges, per-family FACTS and parent-association charges, a SCRIP obligation, a security fee listed as TBD and a grade-level supply fee that was not yet priced. The tuition-only flip is real. The complete bill still has to be calculated.

Why this matters beyond one school: you cannot look up whether a school is affordable. You can only calculate it. Any list that gives a school one number is giving you the first-child, one-rate, one-grade version of a question that has several answers.

Two practical warnings.

Do not just multiply. If you are enrolling three children, do not take the one-child number and triple it. Ask for the actual family rate, and ask whether each fee is per child or per family.

And do not assume a discount disappears because you have TEFA. The Comptroller’s guidance says that if a family qualifies for a generally applicable sibling, employee or parishioner discount, TEFA participation should not affect it. Get the final rate in writing anyway.

→ Your grades, your children, your award — see your real number →

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Will the Texas ESA cancel out the financial aid you already get?

Possibly, and this is the single most expensive thing many families do not know. The Texas Comptroller’s guidance says a student should not be charged a different amount of tuition and fees simply because the student receives a TEFA award. The same guidance says schools may tailor financial aid to individual circumstances and may factor the award into an analysis of the family’s ability to pay.

Read those two sentences again, because they sit next to each other in the same official guidance.

The school should not change the tuition price because you have an ESA. It may change the amount of need-based aid it offers after accounting for the award.

We did not find a statewide rule that forces a private school to preserve the exact aid package a family had before TEFA. That means your award amount alone does not tell you how much your own bill falls.

The pivot — and it is a real one

The Texas ESA does not protect the financial aid you already have. If keeping an existing aid package untouched is your top priority, compare your written family bill with TEFA against your written bill without TEFA before you accept a new contract.

But the award can still move the number hard at a school where the published full-price costs already fit without relying on an assumed aid award. Fortis K–5 is the cleanest example in this sample: $5,592 in modeled published first-year costs against a $10,474 award under the full-pay option. The remaining $4,882 is a restricted education balance, not cash, but the result does not depend on guessing what aid the school may offer.

The one question that protects you

Do not stop at “Do you accept TEFA?”

Ask this:

“Using my child’s actual award of $______, what is my family’s total bill for 2026–27? And what would that bill have been without the award?”

Ask for both numbers, in writing, in the same email.

If the totals are the same or much closer than you expected, ask the school to show exactly how TEFA changed the aid calculation and the remaining family balance. The school may have a defensible aid policy. You still deserve to see the result before you sign.

→ Print the two-number question sheet before your next school call →

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Could you still owe money when the school’s tuition is covered?

Yes. Texas ESA funds can cover many mandatory school fees, and the Comptroller publishes examples. Enrollment and registration, books and curriculum, technology, required uniforms, school-day meals, transportation, assessments, graduation and mandatory facility or security fees can qualify. Noneducational before- and after-school care, fundraising or capital-campaign charges, and parent-organization membership fees do not.

This section is where “no tuition gap” schools stop being free. It is also where we can save you the most money, so stay with us.

What the ESA can pay for

Straight from the Comptroller’s Tuition and Fee Guidelines for Participating Private Schools, published May 28, 2026. Fees may qualify when they apply to all students as a condition of enrollment, or cover school-provided products and services directly tied to instruction or another approved expense:

• Enrollment and registration fees
• Book, curriculum, materials and supply fees
• Technology fees
• School-related activity fees tied to instruction, including qualifying extracurricular or athletic charges
• Fees for tutoring, educational therapies or coursework the school provides
• Required uniform fees
• Breakfast or lunch served during the school day
• Mandatory facility, building and security fees
• Graduation fees
• Transportation fees
• Assessment fees

What it cannot pay

• Before- or after-school care or other noneducational supervision
• Charges that fund capital campaigns or other fundraising
• Parent-organization membership fees

That list is short and it costs real money. Let us show you.

The $999 that cannot pay the $750

St. Joseph Catholic School in Waxahachie is one of the friendlier rows in our table. K–8 tuition and published known charges total $9,475, leaving $999 of restricted award money.

The school also requires every family to participate in a raffle. The first student receives 150 tickets worth $750. Families can sell the tickets. If they choose to pay for the tickets themselves instead, the school allows five monthly installments.

Fundraising is not an eligible ESA expense. So look at what that can mean:

• You have $999 remaining in the child’s restricted ESA account for approved education expenses
• You can still have up to $750 coming from personal cash if the raffle tickets are not sold
• The school is under the award on paper, but the restricted surplus cannot be converted into cash to satisfy that fundraiser

That is not a criticism of the school. St. Joseph publishes the raffle clearly. But it is exactly the kind of cost that a “schools under $10,474” list will never show you, and it can be the difference between a plan that works and one that does not.

Required, but nobody published a price

This is our hardest rule and the most important one on the page: a required cost with no published price is shown as unknown. Never as zero.

Three real examples from our table:

Holy Spirit’s Pre-K row is a good illustration of why we will not round in your favor. Plus $131 looks like a win. It is a rounding error on a uniform invoice. We label it “margin too thin to call,” and we mean it.

One more line item worth knowing

Computer hardware and software are capped at 10% of the annual award. On $10,474, that is $1,047.40. On a $2,000 homeschool/other award, it is $200. If a school requires a device, check the official approved-expense rule before you assume the full price can come from TEFA.

→ Add your school’s fees and see what remains — Zero-Gap Check →

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What does the cheaper parishioner rate actually cost you?

Many parochial schools publish two tuition rates, and the lower one requires documented church membership, participation or giving. In four Dallas school rate cards we checked, the published giving expectation or minimum ranged from $520 to $1,400 a year. Church gifts are not school tuition, and TEFA funds cannot be used as a cash donation to qualify for the lower rate.

If you have been reading tuition pages, you have noticed there are often two numbers: parishioner and non-parishioner, or member and non-member. The gap between them can be enormous.

Christ the King School in Dallas, 2026–27:

The parishioner discount on Pre-K–3 is $4,715. That is bigger than the entire remaining tuition gap a parishioner has to cover. Which grade you are in matters. Which rate you actually qualify for matters more.

The price of the lower price

Here is what we assembled from four current Dallas-area school pages:

Three publish fixed minimums. St. Rita publishes a suggested amount rather than a hard dollar minimum. Treat those differently.

The mechanical point is the same: the low tuition rate may come with a church-support expectation that sits outside the school bill and outside your restricted ESA balance.

Is that unreasonable? No. Parishes subsidize schools, and the giving rule is part of how that subsidy is funded. The discount is real. It just is not the same thing as free.

None of this is about anyone’s faith, and we are not making a religious argument. It is a pricing structure. When a school publishes two rates, use the higher one until the school confirms the lower one is yours.

Three things that catch families out

Prior-year giving can matter. St. Pius X and St. Thomas Aquinas look backward at the previous calendar year. If you are planning for 2027–28, that clock may already be running.

The lower rate can require more than money. The published rules can also require registration, sacramental participation or a record of parish involvement.

Use the non-member rate until approval is written. That is how we built Holy Spirit’s rows. If the lower rate is approved, you get a pleasant surprise instead of an expensive one.

The bright spot: more complete tuition pricing

Some schools have folded many annual fees into the published tuition number.

St. Rita says its 2026–27 tuition includes registration, lower-school supply fees, field trips, ISEE testing for grades 7–8, graduation fees, the yearbook and the former annual GAP campaign. It still lists a one-time $500 new-student matriculation fee and excludes athletics, lunch, uniforms, extended day, optional extras, middle-school supplies and tithing.

Christ the King calls its tuition comprehensive and says its only school fee is a separate registration fee: $600 for a returning student, $1,500 for a new Pre-K–3 student or $2,000 for a new grade 4–8 student. FACTS can also charge a family fee unless tuition is paid in full.

Here is our honest editorial take, and it goes against the instinct: a school with a more complete published price and a small known gap can be a safer financial decision than a cheaper school with unpriced add-ons. With the first one, you know the number. With the second, you are still guessing.

Ask every school on your shortlist one question: What required costs sit outside the number you call tuition?

→ Compare member and non-member rates side by side →

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If tuition fits for the year, why could you still owe money before funds arrive?

Because the Texas ESA arrives in three pieces and a school’s billing calendar may start before or run differently from the state’s funding calendar. Private-school students receive 25% beginning July 1, another 25% October 1 and the remaining 50% February 1. On a $10,474 award, that is $2,618.50, then $2,618.50, then $5,237.

This is the section we would fight hardest to keep on the page. A zero annual gap is not the same thing as zero cash needed before the funding dates.

Your award, by date

Homeschool/other students receive the full $2,000 in one installment instead.

Now the school’s calendar

Real published 2026–27 payment dates from primary school sources:

See it? Several billing events happen before July 1. Others do not mirror 25% / 25% / 50%.

What that does to a no-gap school

Take Fortis K–5. Tuition is $4,687 and the modeled published first-year total is $5,592, leaving $4,882 in the award for other approved uses.

The no-extra-payment-plan-fee tuition option is due June 1 — one month before the first TEFA installment begins — while application and enrollment charges can come even earlier. A family using that option would need the school to accept a later TEFA payment arrangement or cover those amounts before funds appear.

That is the trap. Zero annual gap is not zero pre-funding cash need.

The fix, and it is easier than guessing

The Comptroller’s guidance says schools and providers may adjust payment schedules to accommodate families relying on TEFA. It also says there is no time-based restriction on when eligible tuition and fees may be paid and gives advance payment after funds appear as an example.

“May” is not “must.” This is a conversation, not a right. Say this:

“My child’s ESA releases 25% on July 1, 25% on October 1 and 50% on February 1. Can you give me a written payment schedule that matches the funds available in the account?”

One more thing, and it is why we do not want you fronting money casually: a transaction paid with TEFA funds cannot be refunded, rebated or credited into your personal account. A TEFA-funded refund has to return to the original source. Do not pay personally on the assumption that the ESA will later reimburse you unless the program and school have confirmed the exact permitted path in writing.

The deadlines that can cost you funding

This part is not about tuition, and it is the most time-sensitive part of the page.

• Initially awarded private-school students. Families whose schools confirmed by June 15 could receive the first installment July 1. Most initially awarded students had a July 31 verification deadline for mid-August funding.
• Waitlist awardees. The Odyssey timeline says they typically receive about four weeks from the award notice, but the communicated deadline controls.
• Missing the communicated deadline. If the school does not verify enrollment by that deadline, the student can be removed from the program.
• Waitlist proration. For students awarded from the waitlist after July 15, confirmation by September 15 preserves the full award. Confirmation after September 15 can reduce funding to 75%; after January 15, to 50%.

Watch your Odyssey portal for your own date. Do not replace the notice addressed to your family with a general schedule, including ours.

→ See the full disbursement and waitlist-proration schedule →

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What if your award is not $10,474?

Your award may be lower or higher than the standard amount. A later waitlist confirmation can reduce the standard award to 75% ($7,855.50) or 50% ($5,237). An awarded private-school student with a qualifying Texas IEP on file by the application deadline may receive more, up to a $30,000 ceiling. Always use the amount shown in your own portal.

We ran all 19 reviewed rows against the prorated amounts. The results are stark, and if you received a waitlist award they matter more than the headline number.

At a 50% prorated award, none of the 19 modeled published totals in this sample stays inside the award. The cheapest is Fortis K–5 at $5,592, which is $355 over $5,237.

So if you are holding a waitlist offer: the confirmation date in your notice can change the entire table. That is not manufactured urgency. It is the program’s published proration schedule.

If your child has an IEP

A qualifying current Texas IEP on file with the Texas Education Agency by the end of the application period can produce more than the standard award, up to $30,000. The official program page says the amount is based on the funding the child’s home district would receive to provide the services in the IEP. “Up to” is a ceiling, not a promise that every qualifying child receives $30,000.

Two things stay separate:

• How much your child receives is an award calculation.
• Whether a school can serve your child is a fit and services decision. A school can be affordable and still lack speech services, occupational therapy, behavior support, one-to-one staffing or modified academics.

Families choosing a private setting also receive notice that the special-education rights and obligations are not the same as those attached to enrollment in a public district or open-enrollment charter school. Use the official family guidance and the school’s written service plan, not price alone.

→ Recalculate every school using your actual award →

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Can a school create a tuition gap next year even if there is not one now?

Yes. Every result on this page belongs to the 2026–27 school year. The award amount can change, the school’s annual rate card can change, required fees can change, and your child can move into a more expensive grade band. A no-gap result is not a permanent promise.

We are putting this in even though it makes the table less reassuring, because you would want to know.

The two grade cliffs already prove the mechanism without guessing about anybody’s motive:

• Trinity’s modeled known bill moves from $9,725 in K–5 to $10,650 in grades 6–8 — a $925 swing.
• Greenville’s modeled known bill moves from $9,650 in grades 4–6 to $10,582 in grades 7–12 — a $932 swing.

The award did not change between those rows. The child’s grade did.

Annual billing rules can change too. St. Rita already states that its 2027–28 tuition deposit will shift from a fixed $500 to 10% of tuition per student. Greenville labels its pricing as a school-year-specific tuition structure. That is enough reason to treat every green result as one-year evidence, not a lifetime rate.

The honest boundary

We did not find primary-source data proving a statewide pattern of TEFA-driven tuition increases, and we are not going to imply one. This page measures current school-published costs against the current award. It does not assign motives to price changes.

What actually protects you

Three things, in order of how much they help:

1. A complete published price. Fewer unknowns, fewer surprises.
2. A school that publishes its annual schedule clearly and early. You can recalculate before renewal becomes nonrefundable.
3. Asking. “What was tuition last year, what is it this year, and when will you publish next year’s rate?”

Every figure in our main table came from the school’s own current material. Not from a directory. Not from an old average. Not from us filling a blank.

→ Get the nine questions to ask before you enroll →

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What happens if tuition is less than your award?

Unused Texas ESA funds remain in the child’s account for approved expenses. Official family guidance says funds roll over while the child remains in the program, and the Comptroller says there is no time-based restriction on paying an eligible expense — including using 2026–27 funds to prepay eligible 2027–28 tuition or fees.

That last rule is barely covered anywhere and it is genuinely useful.

Look at Fortis K–5 again. Modeled published first-year costs total $5,592 against a $10,474 award. That leaves $4,882 in the restricted account after those costs — not $4,882 in personal cash.

What the remaining balance can do:

• Pay approved curriculum, tutoring, educational therapies, required uniforms, school-day meals, transportation, assessments and qualifying technology within the 10% cap
• Remain in the account and roll over while the child stays in the program
• Prepay eligible tuition or fees for the following school year when the school agrees to accept the advance payment

That third option can reduce the next year’s pre-funding cash problem, but only after a balance exists and only under a school billing arrangement that works with the program.

The limits, plainly:

• No cash back. A TEFA-funded refund, rebate or credit cannot go to your personal account.
• No paying family members for services.
• Advance payments return to the state if the child stops participating in the program.

→ See what approved expenses your remaining balance can cover →

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How do you check a school yourself in ten minutes?

Two checks, both free. Confirm the exact campus in the official TEFA School Finder, then open the school’s own current tuition and fee page. The finder confirms participation but does not publish tuition or offer a price filter. The school publishes the price but may leave required costs unpriced. You need both.

This is the part where we hand you the keys, because you should be able to do this without us.

The gap in the state’s own tool

The official TEFA School Finder does an important job: it identifies participating schools and providers, and the state says new participants are added regularly.

It does not put tuition on the school records, and it does not let a parent filter by price. That missing join — current participation plus current all-in cost — is the whole reason this page exists.

The four checks

1. Find the exact campus in the official finder. Not the brand. Not a similar name. Not a different campus in the same network. Texas has several schools named St. Joseph, St. Patrick, St. Mary and Immaculata. Match the city and address.

2. Confirm your child’s entering grade is offered. Grade coverage changes, and the affordability result can change by grade.

3. Get the current tuition and fee schedule in writing. Ask for the 2026–27 PDF or page. Not a remembered phone estimate.

4. Ask which charges are mandatory and which TEFA can pay. Those are two different questions.

Participation is not admission

We have to be direct about this. A school appearing in the finder means a TEFA payment path exists for that participating campus. It does not mean:

• Your child will be admitted
• A seat is open now
• The school can meet your child’s learning needs
• The school will accept your preferred payment timing

The official parent application guide says TEFA participation does not guarantee private-school admission. Schools keep their own applications, testing, interviews and enrollment requirements. Trinity also states that its admission process is competitive.

Affordability and availability are different problems. You have to solve both.

→ Look up your exact campus in the official TEFA School Finder →

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What should you ask before you sign an enrollment contract?

Ask for a written total using your actual award, ask which charges TEFA can and cannot pay, and ask how the school’s billing schedule lines up with the July, October and February releases. Do this before you pay a nonrefundable application, registration or enrollment charge, because participation does not guarantee admission, full coverage or later reimbursement.

Print this. Take it to the call.

The nine questions

1. Is this exact campus an approved participating TEFA school right now?
2. What is the published 2026–27 tuition for my child’s entering grade at the rate my family qualifies for?
3. What must we do, and by when, to qualify for the member or parishioner rate?
4. Which fees and required items apply to our child, and what is the total?
5. Which of those can be paid with TEFA funds, and which will be billed to us directly?
6. Is there a fundraising, raffle, service-hours, parent-organization or capital-campaign obligation?
7. What required costs sit outside the number you call tuition?
8. When is each payment due, and can the schedule align with the July, October and February TEFA releases?
9. Using my actual award of $______, what is my family’s total remaining cost — and what would it have been without the award?

Question 9 is the one that can save a family the most money. Question 6 is the one people forget. Question 7 tells you whether the headline price is the real price.

Copy this email

Subject: 2026–27 all-in cost estimate using our Texas ESA award Hello, We are considering enrollment for a student entering grade ______. Our child’s Texas Education Freedom Account award is $______. Could you please send: 1. Total 2026–27 tuition for that grade at the rate our family qualifies for 2. Every mandatory fee, required item and family obligation, itemized 3. Which charges can be paid through TEFA and which will be billed to us directly 4. Any fundraising, raffle, service-hours, parent-organization or capital-campaign obligation 5. The total remaining amount our family would owe — and what that total would be without the TEFA award 6. Your payment due dates and whether you can align them with the July 1, October 1 and February 1 releases 7. Whether any payment is nonrefundable Thank you.

Save all of it

Screenshot your portal award amount. Save the tuition PDF, fee schedule, enrollment contract, aid letter, school emails and finder result. Note the date on each one.

If something changes later, the difference between a fixable problem and an expensive one is whether you can show what you were told before you signed.

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What if there is no no-gap school near you?

A missing no-gap school does not mean you are out of options. The practical paths are school-confirmed financial aid, a wider search radius, a participating online or hybrid school, a tuition-free public charter or magnet school, or a different use of the funds. None requires taking on a private-school balance you cannot afford.

Something worth noticing about this sample: none of the six schools in the main table is inside the city limits of Houston or Dallas. They are in Liberty Hill, Victoria, Greenville, Waxahachie and San Antonio.

That does not prove no qualifying school exists in Houston or Dallas. It proves only that our first six-school verified sample has not found one there yet. This is why the table says “reviewed so far,” not “complete list.”

Here is what to do instead.

Ask whether aid can close the remaining gap — and ask in the right order. Is aid calculated before or after TEFA? Does the award change the need analysis? Is the aid renewable? Is there a service requirement? When is it finalized? Is a deposit due first?

Widen the radius after you price the drive. Transportation to and from approved providers can qualify as an approved expense, but the time cost can still make the school impractical.

Look at participating online and hybrid schools. Check the exact program, accreditation and participation route, grade coverage, campus-day expectations, supervision needs and device costs. The award depends on the student’s educational setting and approved participation — not the marketing label on the provider.

Compare tuition-free public options honestly. Keep the categories straight:

• Charter schools are public and tuition-free. You do not need an ESA to attend one.
• Magnet schools are public and tuition-free.
• Private schools can participate in TEFA, control admission and set tuition.
• Homeschool/other settings use the separate $2,000 award route.

Some families do the full analysis and land on a public magnet or charter. That is a good outcome. This page exists to help you decide, not to push you toward private enrollment.

→ Get your personalized school choice action plan →

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If you are homeschooling, this page’s math is not yours

An awarded homeschool/other student receives $2,000 for 2026–27, not the standard $10,474 private-school amount. None of the 19 modeled rows reviewed on this page fits inside $2,000; the cheapest modeled published total is $5,592. The $2,000 route is built for approved curriculum, courses, tutoring, therapies and other services, not for the school costs in this table.

We would rather lose you here than waste your time.

If your child is not enrolling in a participating private school or participating Pre-K/K program, the table above is for a different family. The homeschool/other award arrives in one installment rather than three.

That is not a small amount for what it is designed to do. It can pay approved curriculum, online courses, tutoring, educational therapies and other approved services. But it does not cover any modeled school-year total in this evidence set.

Where to go instead:

• How the educational setting changes the Texas ESA award
• Microschools and learning pods in Texas
• What the $2,000 homeschool/other award can buy

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How we built this

Every tuition figure on this page came from the school’s own published 2026–27 material, read on August 5, 2026. Every program rule came from the Texas Comptroller’s official TEFA material or Odyssey’s program-administration guidance. We used no tuition directory in the calculation, and we left unpriced costs marked unknown rather than filling them with a number we could not source.

The rules we followed

Two pieces of evidence per public row: the exact campus in the state’s participating-school file, plus a current school-published tuition or fee source.

Then we separated five things that other pages blend together: base tuition, priced mandatory charges, required items with no published price, obligations TEFA cannot pay and optional costs. Blanks are never treated as zero.

Our calculations use the full $10,474 award, first child, new student, no discounts or aid, and the highest published curriculum estimate where a range exists. We use a no-extra-fee payment option when the school publishes one. An unpriced payment-plan charge remains unknown rather than being invented.

What we actually verified

• The 2026–27 standard private-school award of $10,474 and the $2,000 homeschool/other amount
• The February 4–March 31 application window and the fact that the current cycle is closed
• The 25% / 25% / 50% private-school release schedule and the dollar amounts on a full standard award
• The communicated enrollment-verification rule and the separate September 15 / January 15 waitlist-proration thresholds
• The published eligible and ineligible fee examples in the Comptroller’s guidance dated May 28, 2026
• The advance-payment, restricted-refund and rollover rules
• The “should not charge differently” guidance, the generally applicable discount rule and the financial-aid ability-to-pay clause
• The 10% technology cap
• 18 tuition-fit grade bands and one near-miss row at six named participating campuses
• Five tuition-fit rows with a complete published-cost fit under the modeled payment option
• Parishioner-rate giving rules at four named Dallas schools
• Published payment timing at six named schools
• That the official finder has participation data but no tuition figures or price filter
• The August 1 annual-report figures and 2,785 records in the August 2 participating-school file

What we did not verify — treat all of this as open

• Whether your child will be admitted anywhere
• Whether any school has a seat available now
• Whether any school is a good academic or support fit for your child
• Your final financial-aid award
• Any cost a school has not published, including St. Luke’s FACTS annual fee, Holy Spirit’s uniforms and Chromebook, Greenville’s FACTS charge and Fortis’s payment-plan fee
• Whether a specific school will adjust billing to match the TEFA releases
• Whether tuition increases are happening systematically across Texas because of TEFA
• The total number of participating Texas schools with tuition at or below $10,474
• Any school not in the table. Not listed means not yet reviewed under this method. It does not mean excluded, unaffordable or nonparticipating.

That second list is longer than most pages would admit. We think it is one of the most useful things here.

Contradictions and calculation traps we ran into

Where we got it

Program rules and amounts: the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program, official family guidance, May 28 tuition-and-fee guidance, Odyssey’s funding timeline, the annual demographic report, the official finder and the participating-schools file.

School figures: each school’s linked tuition, admissions or fee page in the tables above.

Found something wrong? Tell us. We will verify it, correct it and log the change.

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Two numbers worth holding together

The first number is $4,882. That is what remains in a full standard award after Fortis K–5 tuition and the published first-year costs in our model under the full-pay option.

The second number is $750. That is what a St. Joseph Waxahachie family can still have to cover from personal cash if the first student’s required raffle tickets are not sold, even while $999 remains in the restricted ESA account after the school’s published known charges.

Both numbers are real. They point in opposite directions on purpose.

The first proves that a no-tuition-gap school can create real room for other approved education expenses. The second proves that restricted money left in an ESA is not the same thing as cash available for every obligation a school places on a family.

A page that told you only the first number would be selling you something. A page that told you only the second would be hiding a real opportunity. You need both.

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Frequently asked questions

Is Texas ESA the same thing as TEFA? Yes. Texas Education Freedom Accounts, or TEFA, is the official program name. “Texas ESA” and “Texas school voucher” are common search terms for the same program, administered by the Texas Comptroller with Odyssey supporting program administration.

Is private school actually free in Texas now? Not automatically. We found 18 grade bands where published tuition fits inside the standard award, but only five have a complete published-cost fit under our assumptions. Zero out-of-pocket still requires a written, family-specific quote.

Does every private-school student get exactly $10,474? No. That is the standard 2026–27 amount for an awarded student attending a participating private school. A qualifying IEP can produce more, up to $30,000, and a later waitlist confirmation can reduce funding to 75% or 50%. Use the amount in your portal.

Does accepting Texas ESA mean my child gets into the school? No. Participation creates the approved payment path. Admission, testing, interviews, seat availability and service fit remain separate.

Can a school charge me more because I have a Texas ESA award? The state’s guidance says a student should not be charged a different amount of tuition or fees simply because the student receives an award, and generally applicable sibling, employee and parishioner discounts should not be affected. Get the quote in writing.

Can Texas ESA pay my enrollment or registration fee? It can when the fee applies as a condition of enrollment and meets the program’s rules. Enrollment and registration are on the Comptroller’s eligible-fee example list.

Can Texas ESA pay for uniforms? Required uniform fees are an approved category. The school still has to provide the amount and use a permitted transaction path.

Can Texas ESA pay for aftercare? Noneducational before- and after-school supervision is on the ineligible list. Price it separately if your family needs it.

Can Texas ESA pay a school fundraising or raffle obligation? Fundraising and capital-campaign charges are ineligible, as are parent-organization membership fees. That is why a family can have money left in the restricted account and still owe personal cash.

Can I get unused Texas ESA money back as cash? No. There is no personal cash withdrawal, and a refund from a TEFA-funded transaction cannot be credited to the parent’s personal account.

Can unused funds stay in the account? Yes. Official family guidance says funds roll over while the child remains in the program. The state also says eligible tuition and fees can be prepaid, including for the next school year, subject to the program and school rules.

Can a school scholarship cover the remaining gap? Sometimes. Ask whether aid is calculated before or after TEFA, because schools may factor the award into an ability-to-pay analysis.

Can an online private school participate? Yes, when the exact school or program meets the participation requirements and is accepted. Confirm the exact program in the official system. The child’s educational setting affects the award amount.

Why did only $2,618.50 become available on July 1? That is 25% of the standard $10,474 award. Another 25% is scheduled for October 1 and the final 50% for February 1, subject to continued eligibility and program requirements.

How often is this page updated? We re-check the official participation file monthly and more often during active enrollment changes, re-check school tuition as new annual schedules are published, and re-check program guidance monthly. Every public row should carry its own source-check date so one updated school does not make every other row look fresh.

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Before you go

You have been comparing your family’s bill against averages and headline tuition numbers. Averages are the one number that describes nobody — the mean of Fortis K–5 at $5,592 and Christ the King non-parishioner grades 4–8 at $18,230 is not either family’s bill.

Now you have 19 school-grade rows, 18 where tuition fits, five with a complete published-cost fit under the stated assumptions, and nine questions that get you the last number.

You did not have bad instincts. You had incomplete information. That is fixable with the right written questions.

Still not sure which path is right for your family? Take our free 60-second school choice matching quiz.

Tell us your child’s grade, ZIP code, award amount and what you are looking for, and we will build a personalized school choice action plan — including the schools worth calling first.

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The School Choice Index is an independent comparison and research resource for U.S. school choice programs. This page covers cost, not school quality, and nothing here is a recommendation of any school or a guarantee of admission, funding or outcome. Verify the exact campus in the official TEFA School Finder and get your family’s total in writing before signing an enrollment contract.

Related: Texas school choice guide · Autism schools that accept Texas ESA · Texas TEFA award calculator · TEFA funding schedule · Texas ESA approved expenses · Online schools that accept Texas TEFA · Texas microschools and learning pods