This opinion piece was first published by The Lima News.

With less than a month before the start of a new school year, Ohio families can take advantage of more school choice and K-12 education options than ever before. The success of Ohio’s EdChoice Scholarship Program and an expanded public charter school initiative give students viable, affordable alternatives to their local public district school.

Families are understandably eager to enroll in these school choice alternatives, which unfortunately means more students than available desks in many private and public charter school classrooms. Some of the blame for the classroom capacity crunch lies with state policies that still favor traditional public schools by barring charter schools from accessing state funds for facility expansion and enhancement.

Ohio’s Classroom Facilities Assistance Program has provided traditional public schools with nearly $12 billion to help school districts pay for buildings and facilities. But these funds are unavailable to private and charter schools, which must rely instead on philanthropy and bank loans at market interest rates to fund expansion and improvements. Inflation and rising interest rates have made classroom construction and school expansion prohibitively expensive, so supply cannot keep pace with rising demand, and charter schools must reluctantly turn away families.

There are policy solutions to this policy problem. Public and private charter schools need extra capital to fund school and classroom expansion, and there are ways for state policymakers to make that capital more accessible.

The Buckeye Institute recommends several options for leveling the uneven financial playing field for Ohio charter schools. First, lawmakers could create a permanent revolving loan fund to provide low- or no-interest construction loans to private and charter schools. The low-rate revolving loans make classroom construction more affordable without adding to public deficits. As charter schools repay their loans, the repaid money becomes available for other schools to borrow. Proper safeguards must ensure that loan funds reach bona fide and eligible schools, but similar reinvestment cycles have successfully funded major public projects such as roads and water treatment plants.

Creating a modified linked deposit program for schools would offer a second option. The state treasurer already runs linked deposit programs such as the AG-Link Program, which offers farms and agricultural businesses low-cost financing by investing state funds in certificates of deposit with participating financial institutions at below-market interest rates. The financial institutions then pass the interest savings on to farms — or eligible schools, in this proposal — to reduce the cost of the loan.

Alternatively, Ohio could ease lender concerns — and therefore interest rates — for charter schools by creating loan guarantee programs similar to the Ohio Capital Access Program run by the Ohio Department of Development. Borrowing schools, private lenders and the state would contribute a small percentage of the loan into a reserve fund set aside to offset potential loan losses. The program protects lenders while making it easier for schools to borrow at lower rates.

As students start shopping for school supplies and their parents continue shopping for the right schools, Ohio should help ensure that every student in every family across every community can find a seat in the classroom that best fits their academic needs.

Greg R. Lawson is a research fellow at The Buckeye Institute. His column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Lima News editorial board or AIM Media, owner of The Lima News.