Washington, D.C. - The D.C. Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation (the Trust) announced today that it has awarded 1,014 scholarships for the 2011-12 school year as part of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), which gives federally funded scholarships to students from low-income families to attend participating private schools in the District.

This is the eighth year of the OSP, which was reauthorized and expanded by Congress in April 2011. Under the newly expanded program, 1,014 new scholarships have been awarded for the 2011-12 school year. In addition, the scholarship caps have increased for the 2011-12 school year: up to $12,000 for students in grades 9-12 and up to $8,000 for students in grades K-8, compared to $7,500 per student in previous years. The scholarships cover most or all educational expenses.

The OSP is part of a broader school improvement effort in the District founded on the belief that all education sectors (public schools, public charter schools, and nonpublic schools) can offer quality education experiences for the District's students, and that those students who are the most economically disadvantaged typically have the least access to such experiences. The Trust became the administrator of the OSP in May 2010 and works with a number of partners to help maximize the number of eligible District students participating in the program. Between 2004 and 2009, the OSP has awarded scholarships to more than 3,700 low-income D.C. students to attend non-public, K-12 schools in the District.

A federal study of the program conducted in 2010 indicated that parents who received scholarships to send their children to private schools were overwhelmingly satisfied with their choices and that the offer of an OSP scholarship raised students’ likelihood of completing high school by 12 percentage points overall.

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