- What it actually is
A state-funded education savings account, which the Legislature named Giving All True Opportunity to Rise. The money sits in an Odyssey account in your child's name and is released in four quarterly deposits. It replaced the old Louisiana Scholarship Program vouchers, which in this part of the state were used at a handful of schools rather than at dozens.
- Who is eligible
Any Louisiana resident aged 5 to 21 by September 30. There is no income cap on eligibility. Because the appropriation is capped, awards go out in priority order: students already in the program, then students with an IDEA disability and households at or below 250% of the federal poverty level ($80,375 for a family of four), then siblings of participants, then everyone else by the time they applied.
- The three amounts
$5,243 for most students, $7,626 for a household at or below 250% of poverty, and up to $15,253 for a student with a disability under IDEA, tiered by the level of support. A student who held a Louisiana Scholarship Program voucher and stays at the same school keeps the 2024-25 voucher amount until they finish that school's last grade.
- Where it can be spent
Tuition and required fees at a BESE-approved school, billed through Odyssey. Or, for a home-based student, approved courses, curriculum, tutoring, therapy, testing, dual enrollment and technology bought from registered providers in the Odyssey marketplace. You pick one mode: a full-time enrolled student uses the account for that school.
- When to apply
In the spring window, which for 2026-27 ran March 1 to March 16, 2026. Returning students have to renew inside the same window. Apply before you have settled on a school; you tell Odyssey where the student is enrolled later.
- What the budget actually means
17,848 students applied for 2026-27 and 16,993 were found eligible, but funding held at $43.5 million, which covers roughly the returning students and the top priority groups. If you are a new applicant outside those groups, plan on the waitlist and build a fallback.
Why the same award goes further here
The award is set statewide, and tuition is not. Private school tuition in Caddo, Bossier and the parishes around them runs materially below what the New Orleans archdiocesan high schools and the Baton Rouge college-prep campuses charge, and the outer-parish academies are cheaper still. The practical result is that a Shreveport family is often asking whether the account covers the whole bill, while a New Orleans family is asking how to find another $6,000. Where it does not stretch all the way, the gap is usually small enough that one STO scholarship closes it.
The constraint up here is supply, not price. There are 27 approved schools across six parishes, several of the biggest are at or near capacity, and only 10 of them carry students all the way to grade 12 at any scale. That is why the marketplace side of the account, the tutoring and therapy spending, matters more in this market than it does in a metro with a seat for everyone.
The waitlist, concretely
A waitlist place is not a rejection. It holds, and awards are made as seats open or if the Legislature adds money mid-cycle. What you should do while you hold one: apply for an STO scholarship through one of the state's school tuition organizations, ask the school for its own need-based aid, and ask whether the school will hold a seat on a payment plan with a credit later. A fair number of families here enroll on school aid alone and add the account the following year.
The other money
Louisiana allows a state income tax deduction for nonpublic school tuition, fees, uniforms and required supplies; check the current cap with the Department of Revenue, since it has changed. From the 2027 tax year the new federal Education Freedom scholarship tax credit will fund scholarships through approved scholarship-granting organizations, and Louisiana opted in on December 17, 2025, with the list of organizations still pending. Our own partner scholarship for church-run schools has terms pending.