How much does it cost to educate a child?

Some homeschoolers can educate their children for almost free with resources from the internet and the library and a lot of imagination. Other parents can end up spending thousands on every new book, workbook, game, reading program out there.

We use a middle approach, enrolling in Seton, which costs about $450 per child per year, but not spending much beyond that in extras. I really benefitted from reading a lot of homeschooling book from the library. All the authors stressed not going overboard on spending at conferences and over the internet. I recall hearing Ginny Seuffert (a homeschooling mom of 12) relate how she hears from moms, "I tried Singapore Math and MCP Math, and then Saxon, and I found all these flaws in each. We are going to try Math Power game next..." Ginny said, "The mom spent so much time and money trying out all these programs to "best" fit her child. If she had spent some of that time teaching the child math using nothing but a stick in the dirt outside he would have learned the math by now!"

Can you imagine spending $50,000 to homeschool one teen? An article from Bloomburg.com explaining how homeschooling has even penetrated the Big (liberal) Apple with parents who want the absolute best for their children.

The most wasteful example is Washington DC, which spends over $9000 per child in the public school system and has the worst results of any state/district. Bill Gates (who sends his 3 children to private school) finds big problems with public schools, but he simply wants more money thrown at the problem. "Pay teachers more, find better teachers" is the mantra.

No amount of money alone will help a child learn. That comes from love, a stable family, and parents who are inspired to help their children learn.

And that is priceless.