How to Use Your Step Up ESA to Pay for Cosmo Tutoring

If your family has a Florida's Step Up For Students education savings account (ESA), you don't need to pay Cosmo 1:1 tutoring out of pocket at all.

Cosmo is approved as a direct-pay tutoring provider for all Florida's Step Up scholarships, the Personalized Education Program (PEP), the Unique Abilities Scholarship (FES-UA), the Family Empowerment Educational Options (FES-EO) and the Florida Tax Credit (FTC). If your student holds one of these ESAs, your scholarship account pays Cosmo directly through the EMA Marketplace, so no money ever leaves your checking account.

In this blog, we are covering how you can use your Step Up funds and the exact steps to spend them directly on Cosmo 1:1 tutoring.

An education savings account (ESA) is a state-funded account that a family controls directly, rather than money that's locked to a single school's tuition bill. These accounts are administered by Step Up For Students, the nonprofit that runs the state's scholarship programs, and families manage the balance through an online portal called EMA, short for Education Marketplace Assistant.

You may have heard a version of this called a "wallet" by other tutoring or curriculum companies. Step Up doesn't use that word officially. It calls the account an ESA, held and spent through the EMA portal, but functionally it behaves the same way: a dedicated balance you draw from for approved educational expenses, not a check that lands in your bank account.

If you have available ESA funds in your EMA portal, you can pay for Cosmo 1:1 tutoring lesson packages through your scholarship balance from the very first session.

1. Log into your EMA account and confirm your student's scholarship year is active with a remaining balance.

2. From the EMA Dashboard, go to Marketplace, then Find Providers, the section built for direct-pay services like tutoring and therapy.

3. Search for Cosmo among the approved tutoring providers and choose the package size that fits your student's needs and remaining balance.

4. Submit the service order. EMA checks your available funds and bills Cosmo directly, so you don't front any money yourself.

5. Once the order is approved, a Cosmo Educational Consultant reaches out to confirm the package and get your child's first session on the calendar.

Step Up also publishes its own walkthrough of the EMA Marketplace, including a short video on navigating it screen by screen, on their MyScholarShop resource page. It's built around shopping for instructional materials rather than tutoring specifically, but it covers the same EMA Marketplace navigation you'll use to find Cosmo as a direct-pay provider.

If Cosmo doesn't come up right away in your provider search, reach out to your Educational Consultant or Step Up's support team to confirm your account is set up for Direct Pay before you try again.

• Confirm your ESA balance actually covers the package. Cosmo's tutoring packages run from 12 to 96 sessions, so match the package size to what's realistically left in your account for the year, not just what you'd like your child to have.

• Watch your disbursement schedule. Step Up releases ESA funds in installments across the school year rather than depositing the full award at once, so a large package purchased early may need a follow-up service order once the next disbursement lands.

• Keep your Student Learning Plan and annual assessment current if you're on PEP. Falling behind on either can put your scholarship account on hold, which pauses your ability to pay any provider, Cosmo included, until it's resolved.

• Decide on cadence before you submit. A once-a-week package spreads a season-long PEP or FES-UA balance further than two sessions a week, so match frequency to how much runway is left in your account, not just how fast you want to see progress.

Do I have to pay Cosmo out of pocket at all?
No. Cosmo is an approved direct-pay provider, so eligible families pay for tutoring packages straight from their ESA balance. It's the standard path for nearly every Cosmo family on Step Up, not a special arrangement.

How much of my ESA can I spend on tutoring?
There's no separate tutoring budget inside the account. Families draw tutoring costs from the same overall award, roughly $8,000 a year for PEP and around $10,000 for FES-UA depending on need, though exact amounts are set annually by the state legislature.

Can I still use MyScholarShop for curriculum if I pay for Cosmo through Direct Pay?
Yes. MyScholarShop purchases and Direct Pay tutoring draw from the same ESA balance, so check your remaining funds in EMA before booking a larger tutoring package.

Where can I see the EMA Marketplace in action before I book?
Step Up publishes a video walkthrough of the EMA Marketplace on its MyScholarShop resource page, showing the same screens you'll use to find and pay an approved provider.

Cosmo is fully accredited by WASC and currently approved as a direct-pay tutoring provider for 15 education savings accounts nationwide. That means families using a Step Up ESA get the same live, 1-on-1 instruction in Math and ELA that every Cosmo family gets, paid straight from their scholarship balance from day one.

Cosmo's Math and ELA curriculum is also aligned to Florida's own academic standards, so sessions build on what your child is already learning at school, at a co-op, or at home rather than running on a separate track.

If you're weighing package size against what's left in your ESA balance, a look at what a typical session actually includes can help you decide how many sessions to request in your first service order.

If you'd like to see whether Cosmo is the right fit before committing your ESA balance to a full package, the first 1-on-1 session is free. Book a free trial class today!