How in the world....

[cseitter]

do you pay for any of these online or co-op courses? Might be a stupid question but with my DS going into 9th and thinking of the years ahead it looks really expensive!

[MyThreeSons]

I teach at our co-op, which means that they deduct my sons' tuition from my paychecks. I had heard about this co-op years ago, but knew I couldn't afford the fees until I found out they needed a Geometry teacher.

 

We had been involved in a much cheaper co-op, but we found that when there wasn't substantial money paid for the classes, neither the parents nor the students were as serious about completing the coursework well and in a timely manner.

[Murphy101]

I don't. I think the prices are outragious regardless of whether I can afford it, which I can't. For the same or substantially less I could just enroll in local or online college courses or even send them to a very nice private school.

 

I'd like an affordable local foreign language option but I haven't found it yet.

[cocoabean]

I agree, the prices of some co-ops are ridiculous! My friend paid $2K each for her 3 children to have a co-op class in one subject. I told her she might as well place them in private school where they would get more benefit for her money, by being taught all subjects instead of just one subject.

[cseitter]

I was looking at the PA homeschoolers website and some other online classes and I can't afford it. I am trying to figure out some options for Tanner's high school career. But wow trying to sell it to my husband is going to be hard!

[AnitaMcC]

do you pay for any of these online or co-op courses? Might be a stupid question but with my DS going into 9th and thinking of the years ahead it looks really expensive!

 

I don't.

 

I can get CC courses for same price or cheaper. So I either do things on our own or dc's take cc courses. I will not pay $$$$ for the high school courses, so if I feel they need to get outsourced for any courses... I will pay the CC tuition for credit.

 

BYU offers courses for great prices. I do not know the quality of their on-line high school courses are, but I think for per course/per semester it is only about $125. Now that I would pay and have been considering it.

 

We are doing MIT opencourseware courses when possible. I will pay for a course that I can keep (teaching company courses, teaching textbooks, etc) to use for my next two children. But it has to be priced right and usually used.

 

I did enroll our twins in YourTeacher.com freebie math courses for the summer. Figure this is a great way to have them review courses they have completed and start next year's math courses. Figure they could use the reinforcement of what they already know, it can't hurt them, and it is free-LOL.

[Liza Q]

For High School we did not use any for our oldest and I think she was fine.

 

For High School for our second daughter we have used 2 writing classes (the 8-week kind - ok but not really worth the money) and two years of an expensive class - German with OSU. It was not something I could do at home and it has been expensive but worth it. We save money by doing everything else *on our own* and borrowing, reusing and buying used books whenever we can.

 

Could I spend more? Maybe, but I do not want to increase my school budget! We have taken a few vacations over the past few years that would have paid for lot of classes but those vacations were for the whole family. Now we are spending most of that *extra* money on college and will be for many years...again, each child will benefit. We can't do everything so I try to choose really carefully.

[Wendi]

My ds takes some classes at a local junior/senior high co-op. The teachers are highly qualified. I don't find their tuition to be high for the service they're providing. Rather than buying lab equipment and trying to teach ds advanced biology in high school, for example, I plan to spend about $40-50 a month for him to take the class with a qualified instructor. (And I won't have to dissect a fetal pig.) For 12 hours a month of class/lab time, that works out to $3-4 an hour, which is a bargain to me. Others might feel more qualified to teach a class like that and do all the labs with their student, but I plan to outsource that one.

 

He'll take literature class there, too, at least one or two years. I want him to be able to discuss literature in a group, and have his writing evaluated by other teachers. Again, it seems worth it to me. If I couldn't afford it, I might try to organize a teen book club, and try to get a friend of mine to evaluate some of ds's papers for another perspective.

 

Wendi

[MamaT]

I haven't used any co-op or online courses so far. The co-ops around here are very expensive. We make use of dual enrollment in the high school years though. My oldest had quite a few college credits by the time they graduated. My third son won't have as many because our state cut dual enrollment for everything except math and science classes, which he would not be ready for until 11th and 12th grade.

[Rhea]

We used the Potter's School last year for two courses, one for my 9th and one for my 7th. With Potter's you can make payments - it's broken down into 3 I believe. But as to how... we give up other things. And when my husband unexpectedly got laid off, I wrote the school and they gave me more time to make the last payment.

 

For us the classes were worth it. This thread got me to looking at what I paid last year and what we got out of it.

 

The H.S. Latin 1 class cost $460. There were 32 online classes of 1.5 hours each for 48 online class hours. That works out to $9.58 per hour. Besides online classes, there are the forums where the kids ask and answer questions, the instructor's office hours (2 days/week for 1.5 hours each) and the time the instructor spent answering my Latin questions via email.

 

This one year high school class covered one college semester of the same text. At our state university a credit is $147. A 3 cr language class would have cost $441. So the cost is comparable. Yes, at the university level college credit is included in that $441, but getting college credit was not the point for us, learning Latin was and is.

 

Also, the campus is one hour away and the language classes are typically 3 days/week, though sometimes a class is offered at 2 days/week. It would have been 4 or 6 hours lost to travel, most of that in the dark in winter on winter roads (I'm in rural Alaska) as the majority of all classes are offered at night.

 

And... the university doesn't offer Latin. :)

 

Rhea

[lllll]

..

[Night Elf]

do you pay for any of these online or co-op courses? Might be a stupid question but with my DS going into 9th and thinking of the years ahead it looks really expensive!

 

The answer is the same way that homeschoolers afford other homeschool programs. Our income and budget allow for the classes which are, I agree, expensive. We do not have a community college as an alternative, and dual enrollment in college only seems to be an option for students enrolled in public high schools here in Georgia. I emailed two universities asking about it and did not even receive a response.

 

Even private schools are way more expensive than what we're paying. The cheapest private school I can find that is not religious is $16,000 per year.

 

I just put together my ds14's 9th grade English program because he wasn't doing well in the Keystone one. Keystone charges $400 per credit hour. For my own program, I paid $120 for Literary Lessons from The Lord of the Rings, $24 for the BJU 9th grade grammar tests, and $105 for Write Shop II. It's saving $150 but when I think of the hassle of building the schedule that incorporates all of this along with the time I have to put into logging the hours (that includes a description of what was done during those 180 hours), and building the portfolio to submit it for an English credit, I call it an even wash. In fact, I think the $400 is a better deal and I'm hoping he'll be fine in their English 2 program. I really, really don't want to have to put together another program like this. I'm not enjoying the process at all.

[DebbS]

We haven't used online classes because they are just too expensive. We will use a local co-op this year for a few classes but it's very inexpensive. Both of my kids are good self-learners, so generally if I can get them the right resources, organize them and define expectations, they do most of the work of learning by themselves. I do teach them certain courses such as math more directly. On the others we discuss what they're learning, sometimes work together. Often they teach me which in turn reinforces their own knowledge. I do challenge and evaluate their work, but I only intervene with direct teaching on most subjects when they fall off track.

[2cents]

Our online courses are free from Florida Virtual and we do that combined with dual-enrollment. Dual-enrollment is free except for the books. We have to pay for them. Other classes I teach at home are paid by us as usual.

[QueenCat]

We haven't used online courses but do go to a tutorial. These really can range in price so don't assume that just because it's a "tutorial", it's expensive. The one ds attends only costs us $99/month. That includes 1/2 hour of piano, 1 1/2 hours of art (from a real artist), and 1 hour of drama (from a theater director). 12 hours for $99 only comes out to $8.25/hour, a bargain! We've done academics there but next year, he'll dual enroll at the local college so we're just doing fun stuff at the tutorial. For our family, it's an essential. We believe it is essential learn with other people and not just your family during the high school years.

[QueenCat]

We do not have a community college as an alternative, and dual enrollment in college only seems to be an option for students enrolled in public high schools here in Georgia. I emailed two universities asking about it and did not even receive a response.

 

 

I know of at least one homeschooler who dual enrolled at Clayton State. And another at West Georgia. If those are remotely near year, you might want to check them out.

[Halftime Hope]

Yes, some families will have an absolute budget that allows zero outside classes, IOW no discretionary income.

 

For most of the rest of us, it is a choice where we want to invest our discretionary income, whatever that amount is. There are many things that aren't even an option for us, b/c education is high on our priority list.

 

In our case, we knew student #2 had great potential for pursuing academics, so we thought it a great investment in her future to pursue some excellent teachers who could stretch and challenge her thinking far past what I could give her. We limited her outsourced classes to ones that required expertise in fields that I knew nothing about. What we could do at home we did.

 

Student #1 had some co-op classes and some dual enrollment classes, but they were of a more technical nature, according to his bent.

 

In both cases, if we looked at it purely in one dimension, as a monetary investment leading to scholarships, there was a great ROI. In ds' cases, the outside classes added 25% to his scholarship award, the other 75% of the scholarship $ awarded would have come no matter his classes, b/c the amount awarded was solely based on a GPA/SAT score formula. In dd's case, I'm fairly confident in saying that the outside class selection "put her in the running" to increase her scholarship by 50%.

 

That is just our experience though: financial aid (merit aid) is a huge black box, and no one knows how it will play out until the results are actually in.

Edited July 11, 2010 by Valerie(TX)

[southcarolinamom]

No suggestions, just a sympathy hug.

 

I would LOVE to have my son take Greg Landry's science classes, but they are about $1000 ... so we stick with Apologia and do the best we can.

 

On a different note, my front room is starting to look like a zoo - I have a fetal pig specimen, a fish, frog, worm and crayfish ready to dissect this school year!

[Night Elf]

I know of at least one homeschooler who dual enrolled at Clayton State. And another at West Georgia. If those are remotely near year, you might want to check them out.

 

Oh that's cool. Unfortunately we aren't near either one! I drive 45 mins. to my school. It's not too bad but some days it can seem long. Those schools are 90 minutes away. :(

 

I researched the possibility on the GA DOE website and the rules state a student must be enrolled in a public or private accredited school in Georgia. How on earth did they get around that? I'd love to know! My dd18 has 5 more classes to take and it would be so much better if she could take them at a university.

[Photo Ninja]

We didn't use any online classes. The local cc cost less, and my dc received college credit as well as high school credit. That option was more cost effective and a better use of my dc's time.

[holdoll]

do you pay for any of these online or co-op courses? Might be a stupid question but with my DS going into 9th and thinking of the years ahead it looks really expensive!

 

We have used The Virtual Homeschool Group for several high school classes. They are a free ministry to home schooled students, but accept donations for the servers and online classrooms. Your child can take the live online classes or the pre-recorded ones at their own pace. There are "open office hours" posted for the kids to ask questions after class. http://www.virtualhomeschoolgroup.com/

 

We have been quite pleased! Our dd has taken Apologia Chemistry, Biology and Physics so far and will be in the Saxon Advanced Mathematics this Fall.

 

However, this year she will be taking the Advanced Biology directly from Apologia. Since we can't afford that big chunk of cash all at once, we are making monthly payments to them.

 

HTH,

Holly