Private Schools Near Lackland AFB: 2026-27 Costs and TEFA Rules

Last Updated: September 8, 2026

If you PCS to Lackland AFB now, you pay full private school tuition for 2026-27: the Texas Education Freedom Accounts window closed March 31, 2026, and the next cycle is 2027-28.

I am Christopher Beal, a U.S. Army veteran, REALTOR (TREC License #723559) and Owner of Veteran Real Estate San Antonio, brokered by eXp Realty. More about my background is here.

What actually changed for the 2026-27 school year

Until this year, a private school near Lackland AFB was paid for out of pocket, out of a 529, or out of a school-level scholarship. Texas Senate Bill 2 (2025) created the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program, funded it with $1 billion, and put it under the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, with Odyssey as the certified educational assistance organization that runs the portal. The 2026-27 school year is the program's first year.

The scale matters for how you plan. The Comptroller reports more than 274,000 applications statewide and more than 100,000 awards for 2026-27. Demand exceeded funding, so awards went out by statutory priority tier and, inside the oversubscribed tiers, by random lottery. This is not an entitlement you can count on the way you count on your BAH.

What a TEFA award pays, 2026-27

Source: Texas Education Freedom Accounts program, Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, educationfreedom.texas.gov, page updated August 4, 2026, checked September 8, 2026. Statewide amounts in U.S. dollars per student per school year. The $10,474 figure is set by the Texas Education Agency at 85 percent of the statewide average state and local funding per student in average daily attendance.

Private school awards are not paid in one lump. For 2026-27 the schedule is 25 percent on July 1, 2026, another 25 percent on October 1, 2026, and the remaining 50 percent on February 1, 2027. Homeschool awards are paid at 100 percent on July 1. If you are budgeting a monthly tuition draft, the money arrives behind the bill.

Who got funded first

State law set the year-one priority order, and it explains why a mid-career military household was unlikely to be funded in the first cycle:

1. Children with a disability in households at or below 500 percent of the federal poverty level.
2. Children in households at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. The Comptroller put that at about $66,000 a year for a household of four.
3. Children in households between 200 and 500 percent of the federal poverty level.
4. Children in households at or above 500 percent of the federal poverty level, capped at 20 percent of the money appropriated for the year.

Tier 1 produced more than 42,600 awards. Tier 2 drew 51,181 applications and was settled by lottery. Later releases sent additional awards to Tier 3 students who started on the waitlist. For 2027-28 the order changes at the top: siblings of participating children come first, then new applicants, then families returning from public school.

The military-specific provisions worth knowing

Source: Texas Education Freedom Accounts program FAQ and parent application guidance, educationfreedom.texas.gov, checked September 8, 2026. TEFA is a state education program; I am a REALTOR, not a tax or financial advisor, and eligibility questions belong with the program and your tax preparer.

Private schools near Lackland AFB, checked September 2026

Lackland sits on the southwest side, inside Loop 410. The closest cluster of established private schools is not on the far north side where most San Antonio private school lists point you. It is the 78228 corridor, northeast of the base off Loop 410 and Highway 90. Two of those schools are open and enrolling for 2026-27. One is not, and it is still listed in directories.

St. Luke Catholic School, pre-K 3 through grade 8

4603 Manitou, San Antonio, TX 78228. Telephone (210) 434-2011. St. Luke states that beginning with the 2026-27 school year it accepts TEFA funds for tuition and other qualified educational expenses, and it also participates in the Archdiocese of San Antonio's need-based program, Hope for the Future.

Source: St. Luke Catholic School published 2026-27 tuition and fees page, stlukecatholic.org, checked September 8, 2026. U.S. dollars per school year unless noted. Registration and graduation fees are not included in tuition. The multi-student discount does not apply to pre-K or kindergarten. Before-school care opens at 6:30 a.m. and after-school care runs to 6:00 p.m., with a separate $100 non-refundable family registration fee.

Run the arithmetic against the award. One child in grades 1-8 at $7,814 is fully covered by a $10,474 TEFA award, with room left for the registration fee and part of after-school care. Three children at $22,243 against three awards of $10,474 leaves the awards ahead of tuition. That is the case if you hold awards. In 2026-27, most families do not.

Holy Cross of San Antonio, grades 6 through 12

426 N. San Felipe Street, San Antonio, TX 78228. Telephone (210) 433-9395. Holy Cross publishes a single-tuition model that it describes as carrying no mandatory fundraisers and no additional charges through the year, with a 2026-27 tuition and fees document posted on its admissions page and a dedicated TEFA page. All families pay through the FACTS system, with a 2.95 percent transaction fee on credit card payments. I am not restating a tuition figure for Holy Cross here, because the number lives in a PDF I could not open and verify; ask admissions for the current sheet before you budget.

Correction: St. Paul Catholic School has closed

Source: Archdiocese of San Antonio closure announcement, archsa.org, spring 2025; St. Paul Catholic School website status checked September 8, 2026. Geography: San Antonio, ZIP 78228.

Widening the search

The Archdiocese of San Antonio reports 35 schools total, 27 elementary and 8 high schools, serving about 9,000 students at an average student-teacher ratio of 15 to 1, and it publishes a school finder and the Hope for the Future assistance application. For anything outside the Archdiocese, the program's own participating-school finder at finder.educationfreedom.texas.gov is the list that matters, because a school has to be accredited by a Texas Private School Accreditation Commission-recognized accreditor, in continuous operation for at least two school years, and administering a nationally norm-referenced assessment in grades 3-12 to take TEFA money at all.

Source: Archdiocese of San Antonio Catholic Schools page, archsa.org, page updated March 18, 2026; TEFA private school participation requirements, educationfreedom.texas.gov. Both checked September 8, 2026.

What housing costs in the ZIPs those schools sit in

If a 78228-corridor school is the anchor, the two ZIP codes that put you closest are 78227, which wraps the north and east sides of the base, and 78228 itself. Both are inexpensive relative to the San Antonio market, and both are slow. Here is the complete closed-sale record for each, not a sample.

Source: SABOR MLS via the RESO Web API, pulled September 8, 2026. Geography: ZIP 78227 and ZIP 78228, San Antonio, Bexar County. Window: closed sales with a close date from March 12, 2026 through September 8, 2026. Filters: PropertyType residential resale, MlsStatus sold. Coverage: complete. Sample sizes returned were 108 and 105, well under the 1,000-record API ceiling, so these are population figures for the filter set, not a sample. Active counts are the full active status set on the same date. Prices in U.S. dollars. Averages are arithmetic means of the returned closings; medians are the middle closing.

Two things in that table should shape an offer. A close-to-list ratio of 93.1 percent in 78228 means the average seller there took about 6.9 percent under asking price, and an average of 85 days on market means listings are sitting long enough that a seller has usually stopped expecting full price. Compared with the city-wide median closed price of about $295,000 over a similar six-month window, both ZIPs trade well below the San Antonio middle. That is the trade you are making: tuition money freed up, older housing stock, and a resale market that moves slowly when your next set of orders arrives.

If a 36-month tour and a fast exit matter more to you than proximity to a specific campus, that is a different question, and it is worth running the numbers on both before you commit. A VA loan works in any of these ZIPs; the question is what the house is worth when you sell it, not whether you can buy it.

Questions I get from families PCSing to Lackland

The 2026-27 TEFA window is closed. Is there any way in this year?

Only through the waitlist. The Comptroller has released additional awards during the year as families opted out, chose homeschool, or resolved appeals, and those releases have reached Tier 3 students who started on the waitlist. If you never applied by March 31, 2026, you are not on that waitlist. The realistic move is the 2027-28 interest list on the program site and a full-tuition plan for this school year.

Does an award follow my child if my family PCSes out of Texas mid-year?

TEFA requires the parent to be a Texas resident and the child to be eligible to attend a Texas school. I am not going to guess at how the program handles a mid-year departure, because the answer decides real money. Ask the program directly through the Odyssey parent portal support channel before you sign a tuition contract with a full-year obligation.

Should I rent or buy for a three-year tour at Lackland?

It depends on inputs you can measure, not on a rule. The break-even question is whether your expected holding period covers your transaction costs. With an average of 77 to 85 days on market in 78227 and 78228 and closings at 93 to 96 percent of list, a fast, full-price exit is not the base case in these two ZIPs. Weigh purchase price, your total closing costs, the rate you can lock, comparable rent, your assumed appreciation and the number of months you expect to hold. If the math is close, renting is not a failure. I am a REALTOR, not a financial advisor, and this is a household budgeting decision as much as a real estate one.

Do these schools take the award directly, or do I pay and get reimbursed?

Participating private schools confirm enrollment inside the program and funds move through the program marketplace, in the three installments listed above. Confirm with the individual school's business office how they apply an award against their own billing calendar, because the school's draft schedule and the state's disbursement schedule are not the same calendar.

The next step that actually helps

If school placement is driving where you live, send me the campus and the grade, and I will pull the current active inventory inside a realistic drive of it, with the closed-sale record for that specific ZIP so you can see what the exit looks like before you buy. That is a concrete list, not a market opinion. Start at my military relocation page or call or text me at (210) 882-8583. If you do buy, my Serve & Save program reduces your closing costs.

About the author

Christopher Beal is a U.S. Army veteran, a licensed Texas REALTOR (TREC License #723559) and Owner of Veteran Real Estate San Antonio, brokered by eXp Realty. He works with military and veteran buyers and sellers across Bexar, Comal, Kendall, Medina and Bandera counties, with a focus on PCS timelines and VA loan transactions. Read more about Christopher Beal or see client reviews.

Sources

• Texas Education Freedom Accounts program, Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts: educationfreedom.texas.gov (award amounts, priority tiers, timeline, eligibility, participating school requirements). Page updated August 4, 2026. Checked September 8, 2026.
• Texas Comptroller news release, "More Than 53,000 Additional Students Awarded Texas Education Freedom Accounts in Program's Inaugural Year," May 4, 2026.
• Texas Education Freedom Accounts Priority Tier 2 fact sheet, May 2026 (51,181 Tier 2 applications).
• St. Luke Catholic School, 2026-27 tuition and fees, stlukecatholic.org. Checked September 8, 2026.
• Holy Cross of San Antonio, admissions tuition and fees page, holycross-sa.org. Checked September 8, 2026.
• Archdiocese of San Antonio, Catholic Schools, archsa.org. Page updated March 18, 2026. Includes the spring 2025 St. Paul School closure announcement.
• SABOR MLS, RESO Web API, closed and active residential resale records for ZIP 78227 and ZIP 78228. Pulled September 8, 2026.