According to the collegeboard.org future college cost calculator, by the time my kids are college age it will cost them each $175,000 to complete an in-state, public, four-year degree. There is no way we can afford to pay out that much money and the thought of my kids incurring that much debt sends shivers down my spine. So we came up with an alternative plan for our kids’ education. We set out to increase both the quality and the rate of our K-12 education; we figure that this will give our kids up to two years of being able to take college-level courses while still under the public education funding system.
Advanced placement (AP) classes can be used to obtain college credit and it is possible for a high school aged student to take college courses. Both of these options are currently paid for using the public K-12 education funds. As a high school aged kid, my brother-in-law recently obtained a machine shop certification through a community college. The courses required to obtain this certification were paid through his high school. Our babysitter is enrolled in a high school charter that offers an extensive set of college level courses. By the end of her high school career she will have enough college credits to claim a college junior status. These two examples show that the education choices you make before college have a huge influence on how much of your own money you have to pay to obtain post-high school education.
Unfortunately we live in a neighborhood whose grade school produces average results. The middle school produces sub-par results. In 2010 our neighborhood, gang-ridden high school only graduated 81% of its originally enrolled freshman students in four years and its average ACT scored was only 18. Our kids’ K-12 education would clearly suffer in this system. Their chances of obtaining college credit in our neighborhood school system would be small and they would be surrounded by influences that would make it more difficult just to get into college. Enter school choice to save the day.
School choice is a system in which parents get to pick schools that meet their children’s needs; they don’t have to settle for the public school system that they reside in. Luckily, we have numerous school choices available to us. There are reasonably-priced private schools, decent charter schools, and multiple home school options. We currently use a combination charter school – home school system. So far, our oldest child is one grade level ahead of his peers. If our good fortune continues, we estimate that he will be at a high school senior level by the time he is 16. It is our hope that he can spend at least one of those remaining high school aged years taking college level courses using public K-12 education funds. One year would save him $43,750 of college debt. Two years would save him $87,500. While we cannot completely control the future, we can provide our kids with the best K-12 education that is available to us. It is nice to know that due to K-12 school choice, we can provide them with a high-quality education and that our kids can have the opportunity to save up to $87,500 in college debt.