A $250,000 donation from the Dick & Betsy DeVos Family Foundation will help pay fourth-quarter private tuition for K-12 students in SC’s voucher program. (File/Getty Images)
COLUMBIA — A $250,000 donation from the charity of former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will help pay fourth-quarter private school tuition for students who were relying on taxpayer-funded scholarships.
Palmetto Promise Institute announced the gift Thursday morning from the Dick & Betsy DeVos Family Foundation based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
It brings to $2.5 million the total raised by the conservative think tank since September, when a state Supreme Court ruling halted all state-funded tuition payments.
The institute’s “families rescue fund” is still $500,000 short of fully covering scholarships through the end of this school year for about 600 students enrolled in the first year of the state’s school choice program.
The state’s Catholic diocese is separately raising money to cover 195 students in the program enrolled in its 32 schools.
The ruling, which declared the program violated the state constitution’s ban on public dollars directly benefiting private education, left families scrambling with how to cover the cost themselves or potentially needing to transfer back to their home public school mid-year. But so far, donations have made those scenarios unnecessary.
“This donation is a lifeline for families who have been left without options, and it brings us one step closer to ensuring that every student can remain in the school of their choice,” Wendy Damron, president of CEO of Palmetto Promise Institute, said in a statement.
The nonprofit has been leading the charge for school choice in South Carolina since its inception and helped promote the program, as well as helped parents sign up last year. Damron has previously told the SC Daily Gazette that when the ruling came down, she felt she had to try to raise the money to cover the tuition that would have been funded by the state.
Betsy DeVos, education secretary during President Donald Trump’s first term, has been a leading proponent nationwide of school choice programs.
Her donation comes as Republicans in the Legislature seek to resume private tuition payments with a new law they hope will be upheld by the state’s high court. The Senate and House have both passed differing versions of legislation to do so.
“No child in South Carolina should be limited in their educational options,” DeVos said in a statement, which called the ruling “poorly reasoned and terribly timed.”
“We look forward to education freedom’s return to the Palmetto State soon,” the statement concluded.