Where the data comes from
The approval list. The Louisiana Department of Education, 2025-2026 BESE-Approved Nonpublic Schools Academic Classification List & Brumfield v. Dodd Approvals (May 19, 2025) gives us each school's grades, classification, nondiscrimination approval date and enrollment. We took every school listed under the eight civil parishes of the Diocese of Lafayette: 53 schools.
Scholarship lists. The Louisiana Department of Education, Tuition Donation Credit Program 2024-2025 Participating Nonpublic Schools shows which schools took STO students. The Louisiana Department of Education, 2025 Louisiana Scholarship Program Scholarship Cohort Indices supplies results where the state published them.
Federal records. The U.S. Department of Education, NCES Private School Survey (2023-24 public-use file; 2021-22 where a school did not respond in 2023-24) supplies street addresses, teacher counts, affiliation and memberships. 3 schools in the directory appear in the federal survey but not on the state approval list, so LA GATOR cannot pay their tuition. 18 approved schools have no usable street address in the federal file (no record, or a post office box only); we list them without an address rather than pull one from somewhere else.
Program rules and local context. Award amounts, priority order, the window and spending rules come from the Louisiana Department of Education and Odyssey. The diocese's territory, UL Lafayette's dual enrollment terms and South Louisiana Community College's campuses come from public pages cited in our guides and blog.
What we leave out
A school gets its own page only if it is BESE-approved, has a street address on record, enrolls at least 90 K-12 students and has at least five public facts to report. 26 schools do not meet that bar and appear in the tables only. We do not publish tuition, because the state does not collect it; dollar figures here are state awards, published prices, or clearly labeled illustrations.
Who we are
Lafayette Edu Funding is a Boss Leads project, independent of the Diocese of Lafayette, the Louisiana Department of Education, BESE and Odyssey. Our advisors help families put together a funding plan. If you spot an error, tell us and we will check it against the source.