Your School Website Is the Front Door to the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit

The Federal Scholarship Tax Credit takes effect January 1, 2027. For families in many states, it will be their first real shot at affording a private school education. For schools, it could meaningfully change who walks through the door.

Most of the current FSTC conversation is focused on Scholarship Granting Organizations: how they will verify eligibility, how they will manage donors at scale, how they will keep up with compliance. Those are the right conversations for SGOs to be having.

But there is a different question school leaders should be asking right now.

Is our website ready?

Schools are already fielding questions from families who have heard about the program but don’t know the specifics. The program is still about seven months from launch, and the questions are already arriving. When families want to learn more, they don’t go to their state SGO. They go to the school they are considering. Your website is where they land, and where they decide whether to keep going.

The good news is that getting ready does not require a redesign. A handful of focused updates can make a real difference. Here are seven worth prioritizing.

Families should not have to piece together a picture of cost and aid by clicking through admissions, financial aid, and tuition pages. One destination should cover tuition, FSTC information, the SGOs your school works with, application timelines, and who to contact. The easier this is to find, the more likely families are to keep going.

Most families have never heard of a tax credit scholarship and don’t know the difference between a credit and a deduction. Your website does not need to make you a policy expert. It needs to answer five questions: what is the FSTC, how does it work, who may qualify, when does it become available, and how does it relate to our school. Link out for anything more technical.

A persistent family misconception is that schools award all scholarships directly. Under the FSTC, scholarships flow through SGOs. Families need to know which SGOs your school works with, what each one focuses on, how to apply, and when. Schools that have this published and current will be the ones families land on first.

Do we qualify? How much might we receive? When can we apply? What documents are required? Can we combine this with school-based aid? A clear FAQ will absorb a meaningful share of the calls and emails your admissions team is about to receive. Better to write the answers once than to answer them one family at a time in January.

Families do this research on mobile devices, often at night, often in a hurry. Walk through your scholarship pages, admissions pages, inquiry forms, and contact information on a phone before you assume any of it works. You’ll usually find something broken.

Your inquiry forms are the handoff between curiosity and conversation. Grade level, enrollment timeframe, scholarship interest, and preferred contact method give your admissions team enough context to respond meaningfully. A stronger form doesn’t have to be a longer form. Two or three additional fields usually do the work.

Every page should answer one question: what should I do now? The next step might be to request information, schedule a tour, contact admissions, start an application, or learn about scholarships. Visitors should never have to guess where to go next.

The schools that benefit most from the FSTC won’t be the ones with the most sophisticated technology. They’ll be the ones that make it easiest for families to understand their options and take the next step. That experience is not built in January. It is built now.

FACTS supports more than 13,000 schools. For more on the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit, including how it works and what schools should know, visit our FSTC resource page. FACTS is also building Compass, the scholarship program management platform for SGOs administering the FSTC.