How Much Does Homeschooling Cost? (Expense Chart)
By: Mahmuda Afreen / Read more about us.
If you are in such a place where you are thinking about home-educating your children. But if you are concerned about the expense out of the misconception that homeschooling is expensive. Luckily, you are in the right place to learn the truth.
The specific answer of How Much Does Home School Cost will be illogical. Because depending on the preference of the family it can be low as $70 and high as $1500 per year or even more. Moreover, it will be a lot more affordable than private school and a bit more inexpensive than public school.
However, one will have to learn about the demonstrative expense. Depending on the level and age of the kid, it will be different. In that way, one can also cut off some expenses too. In case you are interested, have a look below and read through the article.
Home School Cost
The term home school is not much popular worldwide but it is in the USA. Since the 21st century, the practice of homeschooling children of different circumstances are increasing in this country. In case you do not have much familiarity with it, America has three ways for schooling children, Public and Private school and the other one is home education.
It is the system of keeping the education of a child bounded at home or other places but school. It is the practice of parents choosing to educate their child outside of the educational institution in different circumstances.
Well, many think that elective home education is illegal which is a misconception. The United State of America has legalized homeschooling in 2008. However, the practice of it started long ago. Moreover, it was legalized with mandatory education back in 1852 with loads of controversy which was later deducted by the court in 2008.
Now, the percentage of homeschooling is increasing. One of the mean reasons for it is the availability of resources nowadays. Even after the pandemic of Covid-19 which started at the beginning of 2020, the practice of this system saw a peak rise.
The rate of elective home education is 6.73% now which is expected to be more than 11% at the end of 2023.
| 2016 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
| Homeschooling | 2.3 million | 2.5 million | 2.65 million | 3.721 million | 2x of 2021 |
Looking at the table above, we can see that after 2020, the rise of this system get chaos and it will continue like that. Let’s see the data for different States,
| State | Total Student | Percentage |
| North Carolina | 179,900 | 10.6% |
| Florida | 143,431 | 4.6% |
| Georgia | 85,510 | 4.6% |
| Virginia | 65,571 | 4.8% |
| Washington | 39,843 | 3.3% |
| Wisconsin | 31,878 | 3.2% |
| Minnesota | 30,955 | 3.2% |
| South Carolina | 28,316 | 3.4% |
| Massachusetts | 17,127 | 1.7% |
| Nebraska | 14,780 | 4.3% |
With that increasing amount, people feel more comfortable and the parents who are not doing so, are thinking about it. That is why they search for the cost of that. Many believe that home school is way too expensive than sending children to school. Well, we will now investigate the cost from different angles and find out the truth.
The total cost of Homeschooling in America
The cost of home education will be different for individual families and students. It is because of some facts that will change the overall cost. Those are,
1. Age and grade of the student
2. Selection of the curriculum of the education
3. Availability of resources such as computers, textbooks, etc.
4. Teaching materials and references selected by the parents and the home teacher
5. Decision of hiring a home teacher
6. Membership and assessment fees, and more
Depending on those, the cost can be $700 to $2000 or more every year for a child. On average, we can estimate the cost as,
| Area | Expense |
| Curriculum | $350 – $850 |
| Supplies & materials | $150 – $350 |
| Field trips | $100 – $300 |
| Extracurriculars | $100 – $500 |
| Total | $700 – $2000 |
The information in the table is the basic and mandatory education costs which will also vary. For the course curriculum, some parents choose science as the major which can increase the cost, and some parents choose only the mandatory subjects which can cost less.
Moreover, for supplies and materials, the actual cost for many students can be 3x or even more than the illustrated expense. Because in some subjects, they will need expensive tools, books, and gadgets. Moreover, for a field trip, if it is somewhere expensive or out of the State, it is going to be a hell of expensive.
So, the cost is not going to same for everyone or even the same every year. It will start increasing with the increasing age of the person. The expense will be minimum in primary school and it can be double in high school.
Even if the child is homeschooled, the parents will have to pay a tuition fee to the registered university. Moreover, the family will also have to give a family enrollment fee of $110+ based on the academy. The tuition fee range is listed below.
As we can see, the tuition fee for different levels of education has quite different. Moreover, a family with more than one child will get some deduction in the fee. In Highschool, one will have to pay a graduation fee of $45 or a little more for every child.
That is the cost they will have to pay for the tuition fee. Moreover, it can be a little different based on the time and the academy they choose for registration.
Extracurricular activities in homeschooling
The home-schooled child does not get the environment of a school. That is why they missed many things in their educational life. Including so many extracurricular activities. Many parents take the initiative to arrange those activities at home or any other institution. For that, there will be some extra cost added to the total cost of home education.
However, it will be extremely subjective which will depend on the choice of the children and their parents. So, we cannot give an exact but demonstrated idea about the cost. In the table below, I have named some of the common activities that children from ages 4 to 16 years old love to do.
Why do people choose to homeschool their children?
We have already seen that the rate of homeschooling is not low and it is increasing now. Back in a few years, this practice was bounded to some special group. However, in recent times, it is increasing and many parents chose this for their children for many reasons. Some of the common circumstances of choosing home education are,
Children of Special Need
We all are familiar with different kinds of disorders, which can be physical or mental. Many children are born with autism and most of them do not feel good in crowds. Many of them have a unique neurological development that requires a special car.
Moreover, some child born with a physical disability. Also, they get any because of any accident in some period of their life. In that situation, parents prefer education from home rather than sending them to school.
Gifted Students
Some of the students are gifted with high IQs which enable them to get ahead of their age in intelligence. Though there are special programs for this type of student, some parents like to do home education with the preferable curriculum of the expertise of the child.
Social stand of the family
Some of the families are financially broken and some of them are not geographically stable. Because of the job responsibility of the breadwinner of the family, they need to travel a lot. Moreover, few of them live in such a neighborhood for farming where there is no school. In that situation, parents choose homeschooling.
Public school Vs Private School Vs Home school, which one is affordable?
Among these three options of schooling, the most expensive option is the private school. The average yearly cost can be more than $10000 for a kid. However, public education will be the most convenient option. Because the cost will be low and the benefits will be high. the yearly cost will be around $1400 or more.
on the other hand, home school is the most affordable one but the children get cut off from many fun activities of the school.
