Proposed cuts in Gov. Tim Walz’s budget look to end a more than 50-year-old practice of providing aid to private schools — from transportation to counseling — a move nonpublic school leaders say threatens family choice.
Minnesota leaders have until the end of June this year to come up with a two-year budget and are looking for ways to cut spending with a projected $6 billion deficit for the 2028-29 budget.
Under Walz’s proposed budget, aid for health services and educational materials as well as transportation for private schools are cut. Those reductions are estimated to save the state $109 million in the next two-year budget, “while incentivizing schools to create efficiencies in transportation,” according to the governor’s office.
“(The Minnesota Department of Education) remains committed to addressing budget challenges head-on with the needs of Minnesota students, educators, schools and libraries at the center. While the Governor’s budget proposal is often a starting point for conversation with legislators during the legislative session, the revised budget recommendations work within our fiscal reality to leave positive balances on the bottom line, ensuring our state remains in a position to continue serving learners for generations to come,” read a statement from state officials on April 9.
Students in Krista Welle’s 4th-grade class at St. Pascal Regional Catholic School in St. Paul raise their hands to a question during math instruction on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Private school officials say their schools actually save the state money by educating students at lower per-pupil costs than their public counterparts and that the cuts risk students’ ability to continue to attend the type of school they choose.
“But even when they go on the public school side, the public school side is still going to have to pay for and provide transportation for (students). So you take the dollars away, but you’re not taking the student away. That student, in some way, shape or form, is still going to need that service that’s going to have to be paid for by somebody in the state of Minnesota,” said Meg Forgette, associate director of quality and excellence for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, which represents 90 Catholic private schools in Minnesota.
How it currently works
Public school districts have provided students at private schools transportation since a 1969 state statute required it in an effort to provide “equality of treatment in transportation.”
Minnesota has provided other nonpublic student aid since 1975, in the form of textbooks, instructional materials, standardized tests and pupil support services, such as guidance counseling and health services.
A student in Krista Welle’s 4th-grade class at St. Pascal Regional Catholic School in St. Paul works in their math book on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Students attending nonpublic schools or home schools within the boundaries of a public school district currently can request the district provide these services, and public school districts must provide transportation within the district for resident students attending nonpublic schools, according to the state education department.
Funding for such services is appropriated directly to public school districts, according to Minndependent — an advocacy group for private schools — which are reimbursed by the state.
“… These are kind of the words we’ve used: these are common good services for students, regardless of where they go,” said Tim Benz, president of Minndependent.
Savings
The governor’s office says the cuts are estimated to save the state money, but private school leaders see it another way.
“The collaboration that can happen where we’re able to make a lot of those dollars and those services go a lot farther than what would happen if we were trying to cover those significant expenses, school by school by school, it just doesn’t make sense,” Forgette said. “And so … as a taxpayer in Minnesota … we’re paying the same taxes as all of our other neighbors, when you look at just the lack of efficiency in what these cuts would create relative to what we have now, it just doesn’t make sense.”
The Archdiocese’s private schools educate students at lower costs than their public counterparts, saving taxpayers money, she said. The average per-pupil cost for the Archdiocese in its 90 Catholic schools in the state is around $8,532, Forgette said.
At Ascension Catholic Academy – which has pre-kindergarten through eighth grade nonpublic schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul – that’s around $12,000 to $13,000, said vice president Quentin Moore. St. Paul Public Schools spent $23,112 per pupil in 2023-24. The state average is $16,649.
“And so, the amount of support that we’re providing to these students, and doing at such a lower cost, when those students who are most likely to be impacted by these cuts are forced, so to speak, to go to their public school district, that’s going to cost taxpayers for each of those students significantly more each school year,” Forgette said.
Impacts on students and families
At Ascension Catholic Academy, more than 70% of its 735 students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, Moore said.
“And so again, you’re talking about a network, for us, of private schools that are really serving those navigating poverty, other challenges, and with cuts like this, it just makes that ability to deliver our mission, it just makes it harder,” he said.
If the proposed cuts are approved, Ascension is looking at needing to raise an additional $1 million to $1.2 million annually, or around 10% to 12% of its current operating budget, Moore said. For some schools, that fundraising could be donations or increased tuition.
For private schools that have a focus on programming for low-income students and depend on transportation aid, continuing to educate those students “wouldn’t be a reality” without that funding, said Josh Crosson, executive director of EdAllies, a nonprofit advocate for historically underserved students.
“Oftentimes when people think of nonpublic services or private schools, they think like the super ritzy, wealthy communities,” Crosson said. “But what we’re talking about here are the communities that are lowest income, that are exercising their school choice, that have opportunities outside, and those opportunities might be taken away.”
Arsema Mesfun, an eighth-grader at St. John Paul II Catholic School in Minneapolis, said “there is no way” her family would be able to choose the school without transportation.
“We bus at the local public school Las Estrellas. I don’t understand why our bussing would be cut when we share it with them, and they will continue to get bussing. I feel like this is a punishment to me, just because my parents chose a different school,” Mesfun said in testimony April 9 to the state Senate Committee on Education Finance.
Bus service is important, especially for families who wouldn’t be able to provide their children transportation otherwise, said Ivette Munoz of St. Paul, whose four children have attended St. Pascal Regional Catholic School.
“Sometimes we don’t want to move to a public school because it’s very important the faith piece in the kids’ education,” Munoz said.
Next steps
Walz and lawmakers enjoy a $546 million surplus as they develop the 2026-27 budget.
But there is a projected a $6 billion revenue shortfall projected for 2028-29. With a Democratic-Farmer-Labor-controlled Senate, tied House, and DFL Gov. Walz, lawmakers have different ideas as to how to address it.
House and Senate budget targets were due earlier this month. The Legislature needs to pass a budget by end of session May 19 to avoid a special session. If a new budget isn’t passed by the end of June, the government will shut down until the Legislature can pass one.
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