The Economics of Homeschooling

This isn't a post about how much homeschooling costs. I don't imagine anyone knows. Well, most homeschoolers know, but the answers would be so varied they could not come under the title, "The Economics of Homeschooling."

But I do want to delve into some costs of education because a friend of mine whom I admire very much recently said that it seemed to her that sending her kids to school was the easiest, cheapest way to get them their educations.

That is certainly one point of view. I commented a year or more ago about the cost of education in the editorial section of a local newspaper. Judging by the comments made in response to mine, many hold the opinion that for what it provides, a public education is a great value.

Interestingly, as of 2010, Utah (where I live), ranking dead last in the nation, spends $6,500 per pupil per school year. (Go here to check it out.) That figure includes costs like administration, but doesn't include things like busing, or the buildings and maintenance of the schools. So a student entering kindergarten this year may expect the state to pay $84,500 for his or her high school diploma. (And of course, that is a low ball park, because per pupil spending increases by several hundred dollars every few years.)

When one considers the knowledge a high school graduate has, the skills he or she has mastered, and the preparation for life it might be said he or she has "completed," I would argue that we are getting very little for the price. It is interesting to do the math and consider what the state is spending on families. When I think that my family costs $338,000 to be state-educated, I can't help but feel that if I were given more say about how that money should be spent, that firstly, my children might have a lot more to show for it, and secondly, that they might show a great deal more for a great deal less. Certainly families who feel they can't homeschool because both parents need to work to keep the family afloat, might have a different experience entirely if THEY got more say over how that figure is spent. (And remember, this figure doesn't represent the physical costs of building and maintaining a school.)

I am not trying to start a movement by sharing this information. But I do wish the public at large would be educated themselves about the costs of our "free" public educational system before they comment on it's value.

I actually am posting because there is a far dearer price being paid in the name of receiving a public education.

When my friend mentioned that to her it seemed the cheapest way to come by an education, I wondered to myself how her children would vote. In fact, I do know this friend has discussed homeschooling with her kids and they largely have voted to stay put in their public school. That is fine. But there is a price. It is this: 2,340 days, or 16,380 hours spent on obtaining the knowledge and skill one derives from a public education.

Lest that seem reasonable, let me further explain that if the average school aged students sleep 8 hours a day, watch TV for the current average of 3 hrs/day, spend 9 hours in school, getting ready for school, and getting there and back, an hour for breakfast and dinner and just an hour on homework, they are left with only 2 hours (assuming they have no lessons or sports or extra-curricular activities) - not solid, not back to back, not uninterrupted, but 2 hours total a day with which to find their paths, their voices, their souls, and their reasons for being on this earth.

THAT is the price of public education.

What are the economics of homeschooling? Spending a childhood on adventure, discovery, and the sort of soul fashioning that will serve our children throughout their lives.