Our Scholarships Fund Alabama's Future Workforce
Alabama’s Future Workforce Starts in the Classroom
September is National Workforce Development Month, making it a timely opportunity to ask a question that should matter to every Alabama employer: Where will tomorrow’s workforce come from?
The answer starts long before a potential employee walks into a job interview.
It starts with the educational opportunities available to Alabama students today.
Alabama businesses have a unique opportunity to invest in that future through the Alabama Accountability Act. Eligible taxpayers can receive a dollar-for-dollar state income tax credit for contributions to scholarship-granting organizations, which provide scholarships to qualifying students.
For businesses, this is more than a tax credit. It is an opportunity to help build Alabama’s future workforce.
Scholarships can help students access educational environments that better fit their needs, giving them opportunities to develop the knowledge, skills and confidence they will carry into adulthood and, ultimately, Alabama’s workforce.
And yet, almost 10 months into 2026, nearly 38 million dollars in available tax credits remain unused.
That’s particularly striking when we look to our neighboring state, Georgia.
In 2026, Georgia taxpayers requested nearly $246 million in Qualified Education Expense Tax Credits on the first business day of the year, more than twice the state’s $120 million cap. The available credits were quickly reserved, and taxpayers ultimately received less than half of the credits they requested.
Georgia doesn’t have a donor problem. It has a cap problem.
In Alabama, we have the opposite problem: We have available tax credits, but too many potential donors don’t know the opportunity exists.
That represents a missed opportunity for Alabama businesses and Alabama students.
Manufacturers understand better than most that workforce development doesn’t begin when an employee is hired. It begins years earlier, when students are building the academic, technical and career skills that prepare them for the workplace.
Today’s scholarship student could be tomorrow’s welder, machinist, engineer, entrepreneur or manufacturing leader.
That’s why education and workforce development cannot be viewed as separate conversations.
When an Alabama business uses the Alabama Accountability Act tax credit to support scholarships, it is doing more than reducing its state tax liability. It is helping create educational opportunities for students who will one day become part of Alabama’s workforce.
Georgia’s experience shows what happens when taxpayers understand the opportunity. Demand can exceed supply almost overnight.
Alabama has an opportunity to build that same level of awareness while directing more resources toward students who will eventually become part of our state’s workforce.
During National Workforce Development Month, we should remember that workforce development isn’t only about recruiting the workers Alabama needs today.
It’s about preparing the people Alabama will need tomorrow.
