EXCLUSIVE | Education fund CEO: Federal tax credit could mark ‘golden age of Catholic education’

Catholic education is uniquely poised to transform society for the better — and a new federal tax credit could be crucial for supporting it, according to the CEO of a scholarship organization for Catholic schools.

“I think in a way, the Education Freedom Tax Credit is one of the most important things that's ever happened for Catholic education,” the Catholic Education Fund’s CEO Patrick Mason told Zeale News, “because it's basically a federal voucher.”

The CEF is a Scholarship Granting Organization (SGO) that helps dioceses and Catholic schools participate in federal scholarship opportunities through the support of a national Catholic donor network and partnership with ACE Scholarships.

Mason’s leadership of the Catholic Education Fund is informed by his experience with founding a charter school in New Mexico several years ago, along with other professional experience. He has a background in legal expertise, having worked as a partner at Mason & Isaacson, P.A. in Gallup, New Mexico, since 2007. From 2017 to 2024, Mason also served as Supreme Secretary and board member for the Knights of Columbus, and worked on the National Advisory Council of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops at the appointment of his bishop. 

Along with these endeavors, Mason continued to invest time in the realm of education, looking for ways to support dioceses take advantage of the tax credit. He helped establish a regional SGO, which eventually became the CEF, and partnered with ACE Scholarships, which has given millions in private funds to Catholic schools in the past several decades. 

Central to the CEF’s mission, he explained, is that “we want to lift up education. We don't just want to fund Catholic education, we want to lift it up.” On a practical level, he said, this looks like providing schools with opportunities to transition to a classical curriculum, hire good teachers, or other ways a school might be in need. 

The CEF is looking forward to a new pathway of funding starting January 2027 through the Education Freedom Tax Credit, a program enacted in 2025 as part of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” that permits taxpayers to claim federal income tax credit up to $1,700 when they donate to approved SGOs, as Zeale News previously reported. States have to opt in to the program before their students receive scholarships and must identify qualifying SGOs. 

It would allow a taxpayer to donate to a Scholarship Granting Organization (SGO) such as the Catholic Education Fund up to $1,700 and receive that money back “dollar for dollar on their tax bill,” Mason explained. 

“So it doesn't actually cost a donor anything,” he continued. “So at the end of the day, you give $1,700 and you get $1,700 back. But what's especially key is that even though the max is $1,700 per taxpayer, there is no max on the amount of scholarships one can give out.” If the parents and grandparents of every student in one’s school were to participate in donating for a school of 250 students, he explained, the amount raised in scholarship funds could reach a point “where nobody pays tuition for Catholic schools.”

>> More than 120 million taxpayers could claim education freedom tax credit in 2027, report estimates << 

Moreover, the opportunities the Education Freedom Tax Credit creates go beyond tuition, he said. In the Diocese of Springfield, Missouri, for example, there is already a strong state tax refund program, so more tuition assistance is less of a pressing need; however, better supporting students with special needs is. The Catholic Education Fund is talking with this diocese about opportunities to provide scholarships for students with special needs, setting up a plan to provide a $20,000 a year scholarship to support them going to schools, he explained.

So the hope is, working with these dioceses, Mason continued, “we can give them huge opportunities they never had before,” even beyond the tuition assistance.

“So, we actually think that this really could be a new golden age of Catholic education,” he said.

The nation’s 250th birthday and the need to transform a ‘tumultuous’ culture 

Moreover, it is not insignificant that the CEF and Education Freedom Tax Credit are gaining momentum as the nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, according to Mason, who described the moment as pivotal. 

“I don't know if the founders actually thought 250 years ago that we were going to make it, this grand experiment of theirs,” he said. “But we did… but also, it’s not just a pivotal time, it’s also a very tumultuous time.” 

“We need something in society that can actually help us transform what's going on,” he said, “and I think that's where this program and this tax credit come in, because we need to teach, we need good people. We need a world full of good people. And I don't think that any institution is better at creating good people than the Catholic Church and Catholic education.”

Beyond textbooks: teaching the good, true, and beautiful

Mason’s approach to education was in particular formed by his experience attending Thomas Aquinas College, a classical school where he said he “learned to foster a love of the true, the good, and beautiful” — something he felt is crucial to reforming education. 

He incorporated this priority into founding a groundbreaking charter school in Gallup, New Mexico, several years ago. Mason and his wife, who both had a passion for education, decided to start a classical charter school called Hózhó Academy to offer quality education in what Mason described as “the worst school district in the country.” 

He said that when the school first started, many of the children couldn’t speak at all even in third grade, noting that their situations were very difficult. Mason said that he approached the school’s programming by wondering what the students might be able to achieve if he could show them the good, the true, and the beautiful. 

The program was designed aiming to accomplish this, “and the end results of that were that [the students] did succeed,” he said, explaining that the school went beyond strictly academic curriculum and aimed to teach virtue. “We try to inspire them with beautiful art and good music,” he added, with “the idea being that they can go out and flourish in the world wherever they go.”

Though the academy faced hurdles at first in becoming established, it has since grown significantly, serving more than 850 Native and Indigenous students. Every single senior graduated this year, Mason said, and each one is going into higher education, the workforce, or a workforce program. 

“So the idea is basically that: Why can't we do that for all of our schools? Why can't we help schools really get to the point where they too are inspiring students with the true, the good, and beautiful?” he said. 

He noted that in his own family, for example, his children’s formation of virtue has been supported by their Catholic school, which is run by Dominican sisters. Throughout the summer, his 13-year-old son had been getting up and using a scooter to go to daily Mass, “because of the inspiration of nuns and priests in his school,” he said. 

Mason added that the charter school he founded was a public charter school, so it couldn’t teach religion. The school had a lot of the truth, he said, but not the fullness of it, which Catholicism does have. He indicated that making such a holistic approach to education accessible to more students could have major positive effects on the broader culture.

“A well-funded Catholic school, which this tax credit allows, teaching true, good, and beautiful things — that doesn't just transform the student,” he said, “that transforms society.” 

To learn more about the Education Freedom Tax Credit, watch Erika Ahern’s interview with Mason on The LOOPcast.