What about money?
Money is one of the first questions that comes up when considering homeschooling in question such as, "Who pays for homeschoolers?" Homeschool parents do not get paid to homeschool their children, rather they pay for public education through taxes like everyone else and then they pay the additional cost to education their own children. For this reason most homeschool teachers have a tight budget and become good at managing money.
Public education spends $10,000-$15,000 per student per year, while the average homeschool teacher only spends $500-$1000. Sometimes parents see the advantages of homeschooling and when they compare them to the loss of income of one parent plus the additional expense of paying for curriculum they decide to forgo homeschooling. This comparison usually does not consider the real cost of both parents working, the long-term financial advantages of homeschooling (like early college), and the social assets. For example, what price would you put on having your children become life-long friends? This is why studies show that homeschool families come from all income levels, because the benefits outweigh the costs - at all income levels.
If you have trouble paying for your curriculum, consider the Home School Foundation, which is HSLDA's non-profit foundation that helps homeschool parents through their Curriculum Fund grants.
To help parents make a fair comparison about what is truly valuable to them, there are many great books like Jill Savages “Living With Less So Your Family Has More “, Melissa L. Morgan’s book “Homeschooling on a Shoestring: A Jam-packed Guide Paperback”, and Starr Meade’s book “Give Them Truth”.
$145,000
A homeschool education can be worth $145,000. For example, if you add up the costs of a comparable private school education with the additional savings of early college with CLEP/DSST and the PSEO program, you can see how much a homeschool education can be worth.
pre-school - $1000 - $1000
k-6th grade - $2000 - $5000
7-8th grade - $4000 - $8000
9-12th grade - $6000 - $12000
CLEP/DSST - $2000 - $15000
2 years PSEO - $12000 - $15000
Total - $73,000 - $145,000
The value of a homeschool education can be worth even more if you consider the scholarship funds that many students with early college credits have the potential to receive because of their higher ACT test scores.
Save Money
There are many ways that homeschool families save money. There are income tax deductions, sales tax exemptions, non-public aid from the MN department of Education and teacher discounts at many businesses - just to name a few.