Nonpublic education is predominantly financed privately by student tuition, fees, and private
contributions. Private schools are free to adopt their own fiscal policies for privately generated
funds, but they must either comply with government-imposed conditions for receipt of
government funds, or decline them.
Under the latest Supreme Court decision, the validity of government aid to religiously affiliated
schools depends in part on the level of education that is aided and in part on the form of the
challenged aid program. The Court had distinguished between aid to religiously affiliated
colleges and religiously affiliated primary and secondary schools, uniformly allowing direct
government aid to church-related colleges and their students, while striking down direct grants
and subsidies to religious schools. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a law that
authorized government authorities to issue tax-exempt bonds to raise funds to finance the
construction of educational buildings of private schools, including admittedly religious private
schools.
The Supreme Court Justices remain sharply divided on various forms of government aid to
religious schools. The Court, by close 5-4 votes, recently overruled several of its prior school aid
decision and rejected the constitutional tests espoused by the overruled cases.
Valente, W.D. & Valente, C.M. (2005) Law in the Schools. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey:
Pearson.