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Students, parents ask legislature to expand career scholarship accounts and CTE funding
Summary
Students and families testified in favor of expanding Career Scholarship Accounts (CSAs) and CTE supports, saying the accounts fund credentials, equipment and pathways that lead to college credit or industry certifications. Several speakers gave personal stories of how CSA or district‑approved funding covered program costs and enabled training.
Multiple students and parents urged the subcommittee to expand Career Scholarship Accounts (CSAs) and career/technical education funding so more Hoosiers can pursue industry credentials and graduation pathways.
Margaret Bloomer, a Cardinal Ritter High School student, described how the CSA paid for scrubs, shoes, background checks, testing fees and equipment for a certified nurse aide (CNA) pathway: “This lifted the weight off of many students' shoulders, including mine.” Angel Acosta, a first‑generation Mexican‑American student, said the HVAC certification available at his high school — funded through CSA support — gives him a “secure backup plan” while he pursues other goals.
Several parents described high‑cost interventions that were funded through school pathways and local approvals. Jake Maynard told senators his son Joe — born with prenatal opioid exposure and later diagnosed with multiple behavioral and mental‑health conditions — was approved by his local school district for funding to attend a therapeutic boarding school. Maynard said the district’s decision and the state’s career‑scholarship system allowed access to an out‑of‑district program that he and his wife could not have otherwise afforded.
Why it matters: CSA and CTE funding pay for tangible, near‑term costs (equipment, scrubs, testing) and can remove financial barriers to pathways that lead to apprenticeships, college credit or employment. Supporters asked the subcommittee to expand funding so waiting lists for CSAs shrink and more students get access to career pathways.
The committee heard personal testimony but took no immediate budget action at the hearing.
