VIDEO: Ohio School Choice Program Helps Students Find Success in College, New Study Finds

A scholarship program helped thousands of kids not only escape their failing schools and find a school of their choice but also graduate from college, according to a new study.

Researchers tracked 60,000 students who received funding from Ohio’s EdChoice Scholarship Program to examine their academic performance after high school. They then compared the results with those of students from similar demographics in Ohio public schools.

Their findings demonstrated that EdChoice students were likelier to enroll in and graduate from college than their public school counterparts. Because of this scholarship program, low-income students were 175 percent more likely to graduate from college than their peers.

Walter T. Blanks, Jr., a spokesperson for the American Federation of Children, joined Fox News to discuss the study. Blanks, a beneficiary of the studied scholarship program, also shared his personal school choice story. He was two grade levels behind academically and bullied incessantly while in the Ohio public school system. School administrators told Blanks’s mother that, in five years, they would have the schools “turned around” and improved.

“In five years, Walter will either be in jail or in a body bag,” she said, according to Blanks.

The scholarship proved to be transformative for Blanks. Thanks to the EdChoice program, Blanks transferred to Tree of Life Christian and eventually received his bachelor’s degree at Mount Vernon Nazarene University.

“It changed my life and saved my life,” he said.

Watch Blanks’s interview below and read the full study here.