College At Home by Matthew and David Bass

 Many parents choose to educate their children at home to protect them from the low academic quality and dangerous moral and spiritual atmosphere rampant in the public schools. But when it comes to college, the decision is often one-sided. Parents believe that their children must attend a traditional four-year school and acquire at least a Bachelors degree in order to be financially and vocationally successful. Our society places so much emphasis on a college degree that parents and students see no alternative.

But is it really worth the cost? According to Reggie McNeal in his book The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church, 90 percent of Christian high school students will leave the church by the time they are sophomores in college. That is an alarming statistic for homeschool parents who have devoted years of their life following the admonition of Deuteronomy 6:7 to instruct children in the ways of God “when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”

Aside from the potentially life-altering moral and spiritual consequences of a traditional college campus, vocational and financial factors also play a huge role. Tuition rates are rising and show no indication of slowing down. On average, one year at Harvard costs around $40,000. Although state colleges are less expensive, many students still dig themselves deep into debt in order to attend. Two-thirds of college graduates have student loans, and the average amount of college debt is $19,202 according to the 2003-2004 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study. Such a debt load is a hefty burden to be saddled with at any age, let alone for individuals in their early twenties already facing a plethora of  other financial challenges.

Vocationally, traditional college provides a skewed view of reality by creating a campus atmosphere devoid of many of the responsibilities of adult life. Parents and students often mistakenly equate a college atmosphere with “the real world,” but the facts do not bear this assertion out. Even when compared to secular culture, college campuses contain a disproportionate amount of anti-Christian thought. Furthermore, the atmosphere in a traditional college classroom is often a far cry from an actual vocation where employees are required to take individual initiative in performance of their duties.

Distance Education Defined

So, if traditional college is set aside, what alternatives are there? We have found the best option to be distance education, which is defined as the process of earning an accredited college degree by self-study through the mail or over the Internet rather than by attending classes at a traditional institution. This is accomplished in a variety of ways. Distance education programs provide students with a great deal of flexibility, allowing them to shape their courses of study to fit their personal needs. In fact, this inherent flexibility is one of distance education’s greatest strengths.

Both of us can attest to the blessings of distance education from personal experience. Matthew decided to pursue distance education after “testing the waters” at traditional college campuses, while David went directly to studying through distance education after graduating from high school. We both found that distance education freed up more time to pursue activities that would positively impact our lives and careers down the road, such as internships, apprenticeships, and volunteer work.

Matthew enrolled at Thomas Edison State College in New Jersey, and at the same time began an apprenticeship at a local software development studio called RoleModel Software, headed by Ken Auer, a homeschool father. Matthew was eventually hired as a full-time software developer by SAS Institute in Cary, N.C., two years before completing his degree in computer science.

Similarly, David has interned at two public policy organizations while pursuing a degree in distance education. With the extra free time that distance education affords, he has been able to assist with outreach through church and civic ministries, in addition to writing a number of political and cultural columns defending the Christian faith and a conservative worldview.

So what are the benefits?

Our personal experiences aside, what are the specific benefits distance education offers? There are many, but we have managed to narrow the list down to three main areas: vocational, spiritual, and moral.

Vocationally, distance education makes better sense than traditional college because it forces you , the student, to continue being a self-motivated learner, something that is taught early on in a homeschool environment. Your instructor is typically hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away, so you have to get yourself up in the morning, effectively manage your schedule, ensure your assignments are submitted on time, and keep pace with the course without the guidance of a classroom atmosphere. This more accurately reflects the real vocational world than does a traditional college setting. Your boss won’t get you out of bed in the morning!

Distance education also frees up your time so that you can obtain on-the-job experience in an apprenticeship or internship. When you can study whenever you want to, wherever you want to, and are not burdened with mandatory class attendance, it makes your daily schedule quite flexible. Gaining this real world experience greatly helps after graduation when students face the daunting prospect of nailing down their first salaried job. According to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, 38 percent of college students doing internships end up working full-time at the place where they interned after graduation. This is a great pattern to follow to ensure that students are job-ready after graduation.

Spiritual benefits

Perhaps the most significant reason for choosing distance education relates to the avoidance of an often poisonous campus atmosphere that is detrimental to students’ spiritual and moral health. One of the primary reasons parents choose to home educate their children is to avoid the secular teaching and corrupt setting of public educational institutions. But when it comes to college, most homeschooling parents mechanically commit their children to secular institutions of higher learning, ignoring the deleterious atmosphere.

As David French, Senior Legal Counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, has aptly observed, “Universities are one of the most hostile places for Christians and conservatives in America.” Earning a degree from a respected university is a poor excuse for being engulfed in an atmosphere that might damage your faith or moral convictions. Distance education presents an attractive alternative in this area as well.

Distance education programs grant students much more control over the courses they have to take to fulfill degree requirements. Students can opt out of courses that they find questionable. Even if students choose to take these courses, though, they will be in a far better position to filter the anti-Christian messages in them from a position of strength, still being connected with their family and church. This is a far better position than being isolated on a college campus under an abnormally strong secular influence from peers and professors.

Additionally, many Christian colleges are now offering distance education programs. The advantage here is that the coursework is pretty much guaranteed to be more upright than what you’d get at a secular college, and you can still reap the vocational and financial benefits of distance education while worrying less about historically incorrect or immoral course content.

The flexibility of distance education allows students to customize their own curriculum plans, supplemented by internships, apprenticeships, and other such opportunities. By maintaining control over what they must learn to earn a degree, students can escape the brainwashing that so often occurs on a traditional college campus.

Conclusion

The responsibility for education lies with the student and not with the teacher. Society has flipped this concept around in recent decades, but homeschooling has begun to correct that shift. Distance education is merely one additional avenue that continues that correction through college. After pursuing degrees through distance education ourselves, we firmly believe that distance education is a positive and realistic alternative to traditional college, especially for homeschoolers, and especially today.

This is another area where homeschoolers can spearhead a counter-cultural revolution that changes the way society views education. Twenty years ago, most Americans regarded home education as highly suspect. Today, home educated students are recognized as smart, capable, competent, and highly contributing members of society. Distance education is quickly gaining acceptance in the secular world as a forward-thinking way of earning a degree. There is no reason why homeschoolers should not be taking advantage of this unique approach to college.

About the authors:

            Matthew and David Bass, both homeschool graduates, are committed to informing others about the myriad benefits of earning a college degree through distance education. Their blog, called “The Distance Learner,” is located at www.TheDistanceLearner.com Additionally, Matthew is currently developing a web-based service to make creation of high school transcripts easier for college-bound home schoolers.