Lottery Applicants

All CSFP applicants must:
1. Reside in Philadelphia
2. Have children entering Pre-K4* - 8th grade at a tuition based school for the year in which they are applying
3. Meet CSFPs income requirements. Click here to see if you meet CSFP’s income requirements.

*As of September 2019, CSFP provides a limited number of PreK-4 scholarships to be used at 34 of our partner schools. For questions about these awards please contact CSFP via email at paperwork@csfphiladelphia.org.

Families can submit one lottery application for up to three children per year. All duplicate lottery applications are deleted so there is only one entry per student in our system when the lottery is conducted. The lottery system recognizes duplicates based on address, phone number, email address, student name, and date of birth.

Yes! CSFP does have staff to provide limited help in the school selection process. It is ultimately the responsibility of the parent/guardian to research, apply to, and enroll their child(ren) in a CSFP-partner school but our staff will work with you as much as possible. Please fill out our School Selection Form to get started.

A school must be selected by CSFP’s given deadline, or else the recipient will be waitlisted and the scholarship potentially forfeited.

All lottery winners will receive registration instructions via email in December or March. If you are not selected in December, your application is automatically rolled into the March lottery. If your application was not selected, you will receive an email notification after the March lottery is conducted.

CSFP’s scholarships will be one of 3 flat rates: $1,200, $2,400, and $3,200 depending on a family’s annual household income and household size. CSFP scholarships will not exceed tuition charged.

Please keep in mind, previous scholarship amounts may change due to this update.

Families are expected to contribute a minimum of $500 per year toward tuition, though the average contibution is $2,300. Families are responsible for finding additional financial aid and/or paying the balance of any remaining tuition themselves. Please seriously evaluate your financial situation and determine whether this is feasible.

Our income guidelines are based on the combined taxable and non-taxable income for all adults living in the household. Income may include but is not limited to:
• Employment
• Public Assistance (SNAP/TANF/SSP)
• Child Support (voluntary and court ordered)
• Social Security
• Unemployment or Worker's Compensation
• Any subsidized income (foster, adoption, pension, VA benefits, etc.)

If your cash income from all sources (excluding welfare) is less than $8,000, you will be required to provide additional information. This requirement is in place to ensure that families are able to pay their portion of the school tuition.

Families can have up to three K-8th grade children receiving a scholarship at one time. All scholarships are lottery based and are not guaranteed to siblings.

Scholarships last through 8th grade, provided eligibility requirements continue to be met. These requirements include:
1. Your family remains financially eligible according to CSFP income requirements. (The scale may increase slightly each year according to the rate of inflation).
2. No money is owed to the school for last year’s tuition.
3. You continue to reside in Philadelphia.
4. Your child must be entering K-8th grade for the new school year.

CSFP scholarships may be used at any one of 150+ active partner schools. CSFP does not provide scholarships for public, charter, cyber schools, or homeschooling. The full list of approved schools can be found by clicking here .

CSFP keeps a list of families who enter the lottery and were not initially selected, but this list is kept for that application season only. Once all scholarships have been awarded for a given school year, eligible families should apply again the following year.