Last week I made a post about CollegePlus, and that gave me the idea to do more posts doing college from home. One of the most common phrases writer’s hear is, “write what you know.” Well, this is something I know.
I love CollegePlus and being a distance learning student. I enjoy “living life on purpose” and knowing what I’m pursuing, the timeline I’m pursuing it on, and why I’m doing college the way I am.
So, why do I think staying home for college is a good thing? There are many reasons. Here’s a few.
- Staying Out Of Debt.
- This is a huge reason to do college from home. A little research told me that a popular, brick-and-mortar college in our area charges $5,621 per semester for tuition and tuition related costs. If you live on campus, total costs amount to approximately $13,281 per semester (
- ). Those numbers make my head spin. Getting a degree from a college like this will cost more than $100,000 dollars! In contrast, my degree will end up costing around $11,304. That’s only 11% the cost of a degree from a normal school! Doing college from home makes it a lot easier to graduate debt free. And graduating debt free is a very (very, very, very, very) good thing. 😉
- It Takes Less Time.
This one is very important to me. I love being homeschooled and am thrilled to do college from home, but I am looking forward to having college in my past. After I graduate, I’ll be able to focus on writing, serving, getting a part time job and who knows what else. You might have noticed that I said I’ve been doing college from home for five years and now you’re wondering why I’m saying it’s faster. You have to understand that, for three and a half of those years, I was still in high school. The first two years of college are devoted to “core courses”. These are fundamental classes like English, History, Literature, etc. Most of these classes are covered in high school and the college classes simply add a little bit more to what you learned in high school. To increase efficiency, it’s not that hard to study the “little bit more” after finishing a high school class and then take a CLEP test. When I graduated from high school, I had two years of college under my belt.
- Missing The College Experience.
Yes, I count this as a positive factor. I shudder when I hear about the long class hours necessary in “normal” college. My parents spent thirteen years homeschooling me in order to save me from peer pressure and the falsehoods taught in most schools. I sincerely appreciate that, and I know that my faith and character are stronger because of the way I was raised and taught. If the homeschool model worked so well for the past thirteen years, why would I want to abandon it just because I’m in college?
There’s a lot more to be said on this topic, but I’ve already written a much longer post than usual. I hope you’ll chime in with your thoughts.
I know there are distance learners among my readers. Is there anything you would add to what I’ve said? For those who have not experienced distance learning for themselves, what do you think of the idea? Any questions?
Leah E. Good 