Cynde’s story is already amazing because her son earned the allowable 90 college credits that Liberty University will accept towards a 120-credit bachelor’s degree (75%), but if you look carefully at this post title, you’ll see her son successfully brought in 101 credits, which is more than “allowed” and resulted in saving her family another $4,000. How did she do that? I’m glad you asked!
Difficulty Level: 10 out of 10
This story goes beyond Resourceful High School Planning, which is when we bring college credit into our homeschools and use that credit towards high school graduation, college admissions, and in our future degree. Resourceful High School Planning is the goal of all Homeschooling for College Credit parents, but what Cynde’s son did was even MORE resourceful, and MORE calculated than average. In fact, I would have shared this story if they brought in 90 college credits (that’s 75% of his degree!) but this is the first time I’ve ever talked to a parent who brought in MORE than the allowable 90 college credits. Since Liberty only accepts 90 college credits, how did they do it?
Cynde’s strategy was a wonderful way to work around the university’s “residency requirement.” While residency can mean your geography, in this context, a residency requirement refers to the number of credits you must take directly with the institution to qualify for a degree. Liberty has a residency requirement of 30 credits, which, while this logically allows us to calculate that a degree requires 120, when the residency requirement is applied, leaves 90 credits available for outsourcing…. but here’s the trick: what if you could do some of your residency requirement while in high school? That’s exactly what Cynde had her son do.
Liberty University has a dual enrollment program, as many universities do, but when you use a dual enrollment program and then STAY at that university for the degree, your student is meeting the residency requirement with every credit they earn. This little-understood benefit is exactly how Cynde built her son’s Homeschooling for College Credit program. As he accumulated college credit from several sources during high school, she made sure that he also took courses through Liberty’s own dual enrollment program. By taking courses directly with Liberty University, those courses were counted towards his residency and not counted as “transfer” courses because they were not coming from an outside source.
While I do rate the skill, research, planning, and creativity needed to execute this plan as 10 out of 10, I also want to say that EVERY parent can bring in 30 college credits to Liberty for pennies on the dollar using Christian Leaders Institute and CLEP. Building a plan to complete 10 classes (30 college credits) that will successfully transfer into your student’s degree at Liberty is a 1 out of 10 on the difficulty level scale. By this, I mean that you can learn enough to do a solid job in under 20 hours. Of the 12 colleges and universities that are the primary schools used by HS4CC parents who outsource a lot of credit, Liberty is *by far* the easiest for a beginner, so as you think about what is possible for your family, all of you reading this can eliminate 1/4 of the degree, saving $12,000 for those of you planning an online degree, or $25,000 for those planning a degree on campus. Is it worth 20 hours of “learning” for you to save your teen $12,000-$25,000? I think yes!! But, as you do more, the nuances get very complicated very quickly. Don’t start with the goal of 101 credits; start with the goal of 1 credit. Go up from there. If your student comes into Liberty with even 1 college credit, you’ve already saved $400.
“Our homeschooling journey has definitely evolved over the years. I actually knew I wanted to homeschool before my children were even born. However, life circumstances had changed a bit by the time he started high school, and my oldest attended an online school for his freshman year. Academically, he did very well, but behaviorally, he kept running into minor issues that simply made traditional schooling frustrating for him. We ultimately decided to pull him out and return to homeschooling after freshman year.
At first, it honestly felt like a setback. But then we decided to make lemonade out of lemons and make the very most of the opportunity in front of us.
I had heard about Homeschooling for College Credit early on, but I didn’t truly jump into the Facebook communities and begin learning intentionally until my son’s sophomore year in 2023. At that point, I had no idea whether this would actually work for him long-term. He has never been highly motivated by traditional academics, but he absolutely loved the idea of “hacking the system,” so that became a surprisingly strong source of motivation for him.
The most overwhelming part in the beginning was simply understanding all the options. There are so many different ways to earn college credit, and trying to determine which credits would matter, transfer well, and fit our goals felt intimidating at first. My very first step was joining the HS4CC communities and attending some of the free classes offered there. Those resources gave me the confidence to start moving forward.
My son began earning college credit during his sophomore year of high school. Most of his early credits came through Sophia and Studycom, followed by dual enrollment and CLEP exams. During his junior year, he completed classes through Christian Leaders Institute, and during his senior year he transitioned into Liberty University dual enrollment courses through Liberty University Online Academy (LUOA).
We intentionally followed a Liberty University Online degree plan, and thankfully, the flexibility of asynchronous online coursework made the entire process surprisingly low stress for our family. My son has always preferred an unconventional schedule- sleeping late and staying up at night- and online learning fit his personality perfectly. He was never overwhelmed because he could work at his own pace and often complete coursework quickly.
Financially, this route was an incredible blessing for our family. We do not believe in debt and have lived debt-free for many years, so student loans were never something we wanted to pursue. We maximized our Sophia and Studycom subscriptions carefully, used as many free and transferable Christian Leaders Institute courses as possible, and took advantage of Liberty’s dual enrollment pricing through LUOA rather than paying full university tuition rates.
Of course, there will always be people who criticize ACE credits or universities that allow large transfer pathways. But in our case, this approach provided opportunities my son likely would not have pursued otherwise. Traditional pathways simply were not the best fit for him.
In the end, my son graduated high school with 104 college credits, 101 of transferred successfully (with extras since I wanted to be sure) toward his degree plan. To maximize Liberty University’s transfer policy, we needed 90 transfer credits to get accepted. They require 30 hours be through Liberty and we were even able to complete 9 of those Liberty hours during high school through LUOA dual enrollment, leaving him only 21 credits shy of his bachelor’s degree at high school graduation.
Honestly, one of the most surprising parts was how smoothly everything transferred. I expected at least a few complications with transfer evaluations or degree audits, but everything worked exactly as planned.
The funniest moment for me was when my son saw the word “Senior” classification on his student account while still in high school. He gave this little sly smirk because he truly felt like he had “hacked” the system and honestly, that made me laugh.
I’m especially grateful because my father, before going home to be with the Lord, left a modest ESA account for my son’s education. Being able to use those funds to pay for both my son’s high school coursework and his entire bachelor’s degree — completely debt-free — is something that would have made my father incredibly happy. Proverbs 13:22 says, “A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children,” and I truly feel that legacy at work in our story.
For families just starting out: this really is possible. It can be affordable, flexible, and customized to fit your child’s personality and goals. Seeing other families’ stories encouraged me tremendously, and I hope ours encourages someone else, too.”
