Five years of Homeschooling for College Credit and one bachelor’s degree later, Riley’s mom estimated that they spent a total of $50 on her degree, and her new job offer will pay for her Master’s. This isn’t a typical story, which is why I know you’ll love it as much as I did! Pssst…. I spy a beautiful peacock blue HS4CC honor cord on her regalia!
This story sent in by Lindsay P., Homeschooling for College Credit parent in Oklahoma.
I found the Homeschooling for College Credit book in 2018. My oldest, Riley, was 12 years old and gifted. This idea of college credit in high school wasn’t new to me, I did concurrent enrollment and CLEP and Advanced Placement in high school. But the idea that she could earn years of credit was amazing to me. Riley always appreciated a challenge, so I began planning how we could earn college credit alongside her high school curriculum.
We used Modern States alongside what we were learning. She started with the American History Exam (I do not recommend it! It’s a very hard first exam!). She didn’t pass that one. So we shook off the disappointment and a few months later she took the College Math exam. This one was much better and she easily passed. Overall, she ended up with 19 hours of CLEP credit in high school.
PRO TIP: Modern States is a free self-paced online prep course that, upon completion, will award your student a free voucher to take a CLEP exam. There is no cost to participate, and there is no limit to the number of vouchers you can collect. When employed, this strategy can be used alongside your regular homeschool curriculum and matched to the appropriate CLEP exam to save thousands of dollars on your teen’s future college tuition costs. Learn More
Then the pandemic hit. During the pandemic, many companies offered huge discounts, and honestly, we took full advantage of the opportunities for discounted/free credit.
- She was a beta tester for a test prep program that was offered to Homeschooling for College Credit members.
- She took 10 hours through ASU Earned Enrollment (now called Universal Learner), including a Science with a Lab.
- She took 10 hours through Study.com.
- Her transcript has an entire school year (30 college credits) during the summer of 2020 because she was just flying through these online classes.
My plan was for her to do her senior year as a semester of Study.com courses and a semester of dual enrollment at the local community college. Oklahoma offers free tuition for dual enrollment for juniors and seniors, but we have to pay for books and fees but she wasn’t at the minimum age to enroll in the fall semester. And since we homeschool, she needed a standardized test score.
Som she started studying for the ACT. She did not need a high score, but we figured she’d need to do it again soon to start applying for college and it would be good practice. She took the ACT, and scored a 33 on her first try.
Our state has a scholarship that includes a tuition waiver for any state school and a scholarship for any student that scores a 35 or higher. So she studied a little more and took it again and got a 36.
We had a decision to make.
I was not going to pay for books and fees now that she had a scholarship. But the scholarship had to be started in the fall. So we could start in the fall of 2021 or the fall of 2022. We let Riley decide, and she decided she’d rather start sooner rather than later. She was 14 at the time. We chose a fairly close school (University of Central Oklahoma) since she would be commuting. It isn’t one of the ‘big’ schools, and has a large percentage of non-traditional students.
I will caution parents of gifted kiddos that enrolling your minor child in college is a nightmare. We had to get permission to opt out of the “mandatory” overnight orientation. They changed her status from a full-time student to dual enrollment student almost every time another department saw her age. And we had to call to change it back every time. It is worth it, but be prepared for a constant battle.
All of her CLEP and ASU credits transferred beautifully. We knew that her Study.com credits may not be usable, depending on where she went to school. She did them with the understanding that they might just be extra help for the class she had to take. She ended up taking 10 more hours of CLEP after she started to finish more of her GenEd requirements.
For those following the math, that’s 29 CLEP credits = 1 year of college $0
Riley is graduated on May 11, 2024, summa cum laude, with her Bachelor’s in Accounting. She is 17 years old. She only spent 3 years in school. We determined that we spent about $50 for all of her credits in high school since we used Modern States, and she was paid for beta testing, which covered her ASU credits.
For after high school, with her tuition waiver, scholarship, and two further scholarships she earned her senior year, we paid no money for her degree.
She thrived in college, even being so young.
She was a finalist in a national accounting competition and was chosen to attend the Association of Government Accountants National Leadership Training in Washington DC as one of 9 college students selected.
She has a job offer with a local employer and they will be paying for her master’s degree.
Her story isn’t a typical college story, but we are so thankful that she was able to take this journey in her own timing with no debt. She has commented several times that homeschooling in general, but taking college credits and exams in high school, made her college experience so much easier. She felt prepared for the style of teaching and exams and said that her first-year classes were easier than what she was used to.
