Corey Turner

Yeah, these are just the runner-up trophies.

Wait, are you joking?

No, I guess we do have a few championship ones, only because we've run out of room.

Chris McCarvel is the president of the entire Xavier Catholic school system, which includes roughly seven private elementary and or middle schools, plus Xavier High School, all in and around Cedar Rapids.

And Aisha, I started with the trophy case.

Because as somebody who's visited a lot of schools in my career, what I really see here is success and money.

Upstairs at the school, the high school has a beautiful chapel, seats about 100 students.

They shouldn't be getting faith development just in theology.

So it used to be a combination of tuition and financial support from alumni and the local parish.

Next year, families will pay between nine and ten thousand dollars a year in tuition.

Non-Catholic families pay a little more.

Until recently, tuition was high enough that Xavier was out of reach for some families in the city.

Yeah, it's meant a lot.

Iowa Republicans created those education savings accounts, again, ESAs, back in 2023.

And Chris McCarville

told me he remembered the day very clearly.

Now, any Iowa kid can get about $8,000 from the state to help pay for private school tuition.

And McCarville told me almost all of the families now at Xavier are using it this year, about 98%.

Yeah, the state's paying for them too, which is why it's costing now more than $300 million a year.

According to one estimate, more than half of students using the program