Being deliberate about choosing high school classes can pay off in big ways. This inspirational Happy Story from HS4CC parent Melissa explains how her son graduated high school, applied as a first-time freshman, and was immediately bumped in rank to college senior in only 2 weeks. Her careful planning saved them $35,000 and avoided student loan debt.
Melissa M. from our Homeschooling for College Credit in Georgia Facebook group took advantage of resourceful high school planning for her homeschooled teen. They used a combination of dual enrollment, credit by exam, and online classes from a non-college provider Sophia. While dual enrollment isn’t free in every state, there are very low-cost options available to everyone! Beyond dual enrollment, programs like CLEP and Sophia are just two of the more than 30 Ways to Earn College Credit in High School available to your family. It’s all about resourceful high school planning!
What took her resourceful high school planning to the next level?
Wise college selection. Many colleges allow students to earn credit in advance (in high school) and apply it toward their degree when they enroll. By choosing a college that is especially flexible, a motivated parent can carefully match high school and degree requirements simultaneously. While many colleges allow students to bring in as much as 50-75% of their degree, choosing a college that allows 75% of the bachelor’s degree AND participates in alternative credit partnerships will guarantee you’re taking full advantage. Of course, you can always just take the classes when you get to college…. but you’ll pay full price.
Melissa and her family carefully selected Liberty University as their target college. Liberty is among the regionally accredited universities that allow resourceful high school planning to the fullest, allowing 90 credit max transfer from a homeschool program. (That’s 75% of the degree that can be done ahead of time at a discount!)
Melissa M. writes:
“We had no issues transferring in everything my son had earned while in high school, which included 31 dual enrollment credits from a university in our state (free), 32 credits from Sophia (formerly free), and 6 CLEP credits (free). This was in addition to the 19 credits he earned through Liberty’s dual enrollment program.
He is going to earn a few more credits through study(.)come and then take the last few classes he needs from Liberty.”
At Liberty University, a bachelor’s degree is 120 credits and they allow you to complete 75% in advance.
What’s the catch? You’ll have to DIY this process by yourself- colleges won’t actually give you a roadmap on how to NOT take their classes!! But, we have a lot of educational tools for parents considering this crazy plan of saving insane amounts of time and money.
What value did Melissa’s plan contribute to her family?
Let’s do the math!
Liberty University (online) costs $390 per credit. Melissa’s son applied with almost 90 credits (the cap) which saved her son roughly $35,000. He only has to pay for 1 year of college – and he’ll use a guaranteed scholarship to start off on the right foot.
Melissa writes:
“SCHOLARSHIP info for online degree completion at Liberty:
Option 1- If you transfer credit from Sophia, you are eligible for a 15% discount on tuition
⊗ Option 2– if you transfer credit from a regionally accredited institution earned in the first part of 2020, you are eligible for the student transfer scholarship, which is a $1200 discount per semester.
Jennifer adds: Option 1’s 15% discount for the last 30 credits saves $1755. Since the last 30 credits should take at least 2 semesters, but possibly 3, saving you between $2,400 -$3,600, Option 2 is the better deal right now if you can enroll in time.
At the start, I told you Melissa saved her son $35,000 which is really cool, but what else did she save him? When they logged into his account, they noticed his classification:
“My son was so excited. Two weeks ago, he was a senior in high school. Now, he is a senior in college.”
