The Utah state law that governs the UFA Scholarship Program defines scholarship expenses as those “that a parent or scholarship student incurs in the education of the scholarship student for a service or goods that a qualifying provider provides.” The law specifies that scholarship expenses include “expenses related to extracurricular activities, field trips, educational supplements, and other educational experiences.”
Upon further review, ACE determined that family memberships were inconsistent with Utah law, which states, "a scholarship student or the scholarship student's parent may not use a scholarship account for an expense that the student or parent does not incur in the education of the scholarship student.” Because family memberships can cover family members who are not scholarship students, we determined that disallowing family memberships was a necessary adjustment. As a result, we implemented a reimbursement policy change on July 16, 2024. Parents who purchased family memberships to educational centers on or before July 16, 2024, when the item was on the Expense List, will be reimbursed for the expense. If a pre-approval request for a family membership was submitted on or before July 16, 2024, we will grandfather in the request for consideration using our Pre-Approval process.
Under the new reimbursement policy, membership fees or season passes to an educational location or organization are limited to fees for only the scholarship student and one adult chaperone. (Additional chaperones for children with disabilities may also be approved through the Pre-Approval process.)
Families with more than one scholarship student in the UFA Scholarship Program may qualify for a family membership if the membership includes only the scholarship students and one adult chaperone. As an example, a family with three UFA Scholarship students may be approved for a “Quad Family” membership plan with the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium that admits four individuals if three of the individuals are UFA scholarship students and one is an adult chaperone. General membership plans that could potentially provide participation for individuals who are not UFA scholarship students or their adult chaperones are not approved.