The Real Costs of Homeschooling

Photo by Josh Appel on Unsplash

My youngest child turned 17 years old today. He is loving, generous and kind, a junior in our public high school, a talented musician, and a fabulous student. He is also dyslexic. He did not enter the school system until 7^th grade. He, and his two older dyslexic sisters, were homeschooled for all of their elementary and some of their middle school years. I firmly believe homeschooling was key to success in school for all three of them. I am a strong advocate for homeschooling and wish it was an option more easily available for neurodivergent children.

I’ve seen quite a few posts on social media recently ridiculing the cost-per-student of our public schools (currently averaging approximately $15,000 per student per year) and suggesting that anyone can homeschool for much cheaper. The implication seems to be that the state would be better off handing that money to homeschoolers, or, in the more radical versions of the school choice arguments, that the state should replace public schooling with individual student vouchers.

I spent 15 years homeschooling. Initially, I left my academic job temporarily to care for my children when they were infants. I fully intended to return to work. I never expected all my children would be dyslexic. And, I didn’t understand that most schools in the early 2000s did not know how to teach reading — not to neurotypical kids and definitely not to neurodivergent kids.

The cost of homeschooling was enormous.

In most of the accounts of “cheap” homeschooling I read online, proponents are only counting the cost of curriculum. On this point they are correct. I only spent a few hundred dollars a year on curriculum, plus an additional thousand or so over the years on dyslexic specific reading programs, and about $3000 on tutoring. But what about other costs? My children were not in school, so I was responsible not only for their education but for all their extra-curricular activities. If I add up all that we spent on music, sports, co-ops, field trips, camps, transportation and such, it was more than 50,000 over the fifteen years. I’m sure the naysayers would protest that children don’t need all that, but in order to provide the same access they would have had to music and arts and activities at school, that is what it cost.

But, by far, the biggest expense was my time and labor. Anyone who is calculating the cost of homeschooling as only the cost of curriculum is arguing that the time and labor of the homeschooling parent has no value.

I cannot say exactly what my earnings would have been had I not left work, but I was a teacher, and my husband was also a teacher, so I have a good point of comparison. When I left work in 2002, we were making roughly equivalent salaries somewhere around $40,000 each. Our household income fell from above the median for our state to well below the median. If I average out my husband’s salary over those 15 years, I lost close to a million dollars in income. Not only did I lose income, but I lost social security contributions (mine and my employer) and 401K contributions. When I left work, my husband and I had roughly equivalent TIAA-CREF retirement accounts (common for educators). Today, his account is more than 10x the value of mine.

I am unwilling to discount the work of mothers and homeschooling parents as “off the books.” It is real work and no less valuable to the functioning of society than the work of those in the paid labor force. If everyone is going to homeschool, then somebody has to do the schooling. Kids don’t educate themselves. Homeschooling was necessary for us, but it was also financially ruinous for my family. Certainly, a small percentage of families may be able to live comfortably and securely on a single income, but that is not the situation for the majority of families in the US. To suggest that homeschooling is cheap is to misunderstand the nature of our current dual-earner economy. Perhaps proponents of this position wish our economy were structured differently. Then do something to make it so. But, don’t pretend that most of us aren’t out here depending on two incomes to pay the bills.

Schools pay for curriculum, but that is only a small part of their budgets. They pay teacher salaries and benefits and retirement and pensions. They pay coaches and nurses and athletic trainers and psychologists. They pay for building maintenance and staff, repairs and insurance and utilities and transportation. They pay for federally mandated services for all children in the district who have disabilities, including private school students and homeschooled students. They offer extracurricular clubs and sports to children, even those who are homeschooled. And they do much of this extremely well. I could never afford to provide my art student or music and theater kid the opportunities they have received at their local public high school. My daughter had advanced painting and drawing and photography and ceramics. My youngest has daily jazz ensemble, three choirs, full musicals and plays with skilled directors and production staff.

If I add up just my lost income (the real cost of my labor), books and curriculum and tutoring and elementary level activities, transportation, utilities, internet, and computers (not including lost retirement, social security, and health insurance), a reasonable estimate of the cost was $75,000 per year. For three children, that is $25,000 per child per year. Of course, if I had ten children, that cost per child would drop in this calculation, but the current birth rate in the US is 1.66 births per woman. Comparatively, I had a lot of kids. For most people that per child cost of homeschooling would be even greater.

Adding all these numbers up on a calculator is sobering, but it is still not the full picture. Homeschooling was not only financially expensive, it was hard — physically, mentally and emotionally. It was an awesome responsibility. While there were so many moments I cherish, and enormous benefits for my children, there were also many personal sacrifices. There is little support for parents in our society, and homeschooling compounds the work of parenting. We should be clear-eyed about what it means to take on full responsibility for the education of your children.

Turns out, if you actually value the labor of homeschooling parents, factor in the opportunity costs of homeschooling, and account for all the costs of educating children, public schools are an absolute bargain. I am an advocate of homeschooling. It can be extraordinary and it is often necessary. But it is not cheap. Anyone who tells you otherwise is devaluing the extensive work of homeschooling parents and the absolutely vital resources that are our public schools.