The award does not grow as your child does. A kindergartner and a junior both draw $10,474 from a Texas Education Freedom Account for 2026-27, while high school tuition in Greater Austin is the most expensive thing on the private-school menu. That mismatch is the central problem of using TEFA for grades 9 through 12, and it is worth planning around before application season reopens.
The high school list is shorter than the elementary one
Our directory counts 166 K-12 private schools across Travis, Williamson, Hays, Bastrop and Caldwell counties. Only 79 of them run through grade 12. Of those 79, 62 appear in the state TEFA finder as of October 12, 2026 — 38 are religiously affiliated and 12 report special-education services or a learning-differences focus.
Geography concentrates further. Travis County holds the majority of the grade-12 campuses, Williamson adds a cluster around Round Rock and Georgetown, Hays has a handful around Buda, Kyle and Dripping Springs, and Bastrop and Caldwell counties have one apiece. A family in Elgin choosing a TEFA high school is choosing a commute as much as a curriculum.
Why the flat award hurts most in ninth grade
The $10,474 figure is not a per-grade calculation. The Texas Education Agency set it as the single 2026-27 amount for a student attending an approved private school, derived from 85 percent of average state and local funding per student. Students with an IEP on file can receive more, up to the $30,000 statutory cap, with the amount tied to their district of residence and instructional arrangement. Everyone else gets the same number at every grade.
Private high schools, meanwhile, price for labs, athletics, counselors and AP or IB programs. The practical consequence is that the share of tuition the account covers falls as a student moves up, and the gap has to come from somewhere else — school-based aid, a payment plan, or a different mix of courses.
Dual credit is the lever most families miss
TEFA's approved expenses include tuition and fees at a higher education provider, at an online educational course or program, and at a program providing training for a TEA-approved industry-based credential. It also covers fees for classes provided by school districts that do not qualify the child for average daily attendance.
In Austin that list is unusually valuable, because Austin Community College waives tuition on eligible dual-credit courses for high schoolers who live in its service area. A student can take college coursework at little or no tuition cost, which leaves more of the account for the campus-based part of the year. Our guide to ACC dual credit walks through the eligibility and enrollment steps; the planning question is simply which courses are better taken for college credit than at the private campus price.
What else a high school account can legitimately buy
Textbooks and instructional materials, required uniforms, academic assessment costs, private tutoring, transportation to and from approved providers, educational therapies not covered by a government benefit, and meals served by a private school are all approved. Computer hardware and software are covered too, but capped: the year's spending on them cannot pass a tenth of what was deposited, roughly $1,047 where the award is $10,474.
For a high schooler, that cap is the one to plan deliberately. A laptop, a graphing calculator and testing fees in the same year will press against it, and testing fees count under assessments rather than hardware. Funds may not be used to pay a family member, and leftover money follows the child into the next program year.
The installment schedule matters more at this age
A private school award does not arrive in one piece. One quarter was released on July 1, a second quarter on October 1, and the final half falls due February 1, 2027, if the student is still enrolled at a participating school. The homeschool tier was paid in a single July deposit of $2,000.
Spring is where the schedule collides with the junior and senior year calendar — exam fees, college application costs that the account does not cover, and dual-credit tuition if a course falls outside a waiver. Running the numbers against the February deposit rather than against the annual total avoids an awkward January. The TEFA calculator handles the arithmetic for a specific tuition figure.
If you are not in the program yet
Demand is the hard part. The Comptroller's office reported in August that funding had reached 101,600 students, and that more than 100,000 remained on the waitlist for 2026-27. The first-year report to the Legislature put participation at over 85,000 confirmed students, with nearly one in four having a documented disability and roughly four in five in households under 200 percent of the federal poverty level — about $66,000 a year for a family of four.
Awards are not first-come, first-served, and when eligible applications exceed funding, participation is decided by lottery. For families entering ninth grade in 2027-28, the program is currently taking names for an interest list rather than applications, and no window dates have been published. Families already in the program and in good standing do not reapply; they confirm that they want to continue.
A practical order of operations
Pick the campus for the four-year fit, not the first-year price. Ask each school what its own aid looks like for a TEFA family, since the account does not change a school's published tuition. Map which courses can move to ACC. Then decide what the account covers and what you are financing — and keep an eye on the Austin programs that use a different model entirely, which sometimes solve the high school math more cleanly than a discount does.
Sources
- Texas Education Freedom Accounts — Families (award amounts, approved expenses, lottery, 10% technology cap)
- Texas Comptroller: Nearly 73,000 Texas Education Freedom Accounts to Receive Initial Funding July 1 (installment schedule)
- Texas Comptroller: Comptroller Don Huffines Announces 100,000 Students Receiving Texas Education Freedom Accounts
- Texas Comptroller: Comptroller Don Huffines Reports Record-Setting Demand for Education Freedom in Texas