Billionaires Jeff and Janine Yass are offering full scholarships to students from closing Philly schools

by Kristen A. Graham
Published May 19, 2026, 10:01 a.m. ET

Listen to article • 0:00 min

Students from 17 city schools that are slated to close in the next few years are being offered scholarships to leave the Philadelphia School District for private schools — and the money is being put up by billionaires Jeff and Janine Yass.

Jeff Yass, a Republican megadonor and the richest person in Pennsylvania, has long supported the school-choice movement, including school vouchers. Janine Yass, a founder of Boys’ Latin of Philadelphia Charter School, said she and her husband had followed the district’s controversial closing process and felt compelled to create a pathway for strong educational options for vulnerable families.

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“No child should be trapped in a school that is unsafe, underperforming, or unable to meet basic academic standards simply because his or her family lacks financial means,” Janine Yass said in a statement.

The scholarships will offer 500 students a free ride at 16 Philadelphia schools — mostly Catholic schools — that have won funds from the Yass Prize organization.

Each “Opportunity Knocks” scholarship comes with $8,000 annually from the Yass Prize and is renewable for the duration of the child’s tenure in school, through 12th grade, as long as the student is enrolled in one of the 16 schools. If tuition at the school exceeds the $8,000 figure, the Yass Prize has secured a commitment from the schools to make up the difference.

“There will be zero costs incurred for the families, full stop,” said Caroline Allen, director of the Yass Prize.

But the Yasses’ school-choice advocacy has drawn ire from public school advocates for years, and some say the new scholarship is a move designed to further erode a public school system that has already lost tens of thousands of students to charter schools.

District officials have said they will establish a transition office to work directly with students and families affected by the closure, offering “white-glove” customer service to ensure smooth transitions into different traditional public schools. And they have said they hope to retain all of the 4,429 students who now attend the closing schools.

But many students and families affected by the closures said they did not want the change, and Yass Prize officials said they are offering an attractive alternative.

Read more about the facilities plan

Wholesale changes are coming to the Philadelphia School District, with the school board passing a $3 billion facilties plan that aims to close 17 schools permanently, and renovate 169. 

Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. presented the plan to the school board Feb. 26 and it immediately faced strong opposition. Here's what we do and don't know.

And to see the proposed list school closures and check how your school could be impacted, use our interactive charts.

Each of the schools proposed for closure has its own story. Find them all here.

Applications opened last week and will be accepted until the 500 scholarships are awarded.

Families who take advantage of the Yass offer will know that “whatever school that they decide to send their students to, that it is an excellent, nationally vetted school, and it will not close,” Allen said. “That’s a lot of access to this quality education year after year until high school graduation.”

In all, the Yasses are offering scholarships to just over 10% of the students set to be displaced by the closures, which will begin to take effect in the 2027-28 school year.

The schools set to close are: Blankenburg, Fitler, Morris, Overbrook, Pennypacker, Welsh, and Waring elementary schools; AMY Northwest, Harding, Stetson, Tilden, and Wagner middle schools; and Lankenau, Parkway Northwest, Parkway West, Penn Treaty, and Robeson high schools.

Prior to the 1997 advent of charter schools in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia’s traditional public school system enrolled more than 200,000 students. It now has about 114,000 students on its rolls.

School system officials said the closures were spurred by 70,000 empty seats, a desire to improve opportunities system-wide, and an inability to maintain the district’s current building footprint.

City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier warned in a statement Tuesday that the facilities plan would “degrade our school system and push families out.”

“But Jeffrey Yass sees it and is exploiting the Board’s ill-advised decision to advance his crusade against public education.”

Gauthier said the board’s decision — which she publicly opposed, attempting with other Council members to shut down the board’s April 30 vote — amounted to “rolling out the red carpet for opportunists like Jeffrey Yass to plunder our public schools for their personal gain.”

Lisa Haver, a retired district teacher and a founder of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, called the Yasses’ move “dastardly.”

Billionaire philanthropists could make meaningful inroads into helping traditional public schools rather than further erode them, she said.

“But they’ve been in the business of undermining public schools for many years,” Haver, who taught for years at Harding, one of the schools that is closing, said of the Yasses. “To come and wave money in front of these young people who are facing a real loss is exploitative.”

The Yass Prize will fund 500 scholarships of $8,000 each at the following schools:

K-8 schools

High schools