Beyond Dual Enrollment: Earning College Credit for Homeschool Classes

Many homeschool families say they plan to teach their children at home through the middle school years, and then they will send their young scholars to public, private, or online schools. Teaching high school classes can be intimidating, and parents want to make sure their kids are ready for college or whatever comes next. What if there is a way to keep your child’s high school education under your roof, get the help you need to keep your child on track academically, and have them earn college credit all the while? Meet Jennifer Cook-Derosa and her nonprofit organization Homeschool for College Credit (HS4CC). Jennifer is a 28-year veteran homeschooler, who has helped thousands of families navigate dual-enrolment opportunities while saving money and customizing programs to better suit their own unique situations. “Best of all, we are a nonprofit organization, not a school, so we help you keep control of your homeschool program,” her website says.

HS4CC has been helping families with planning services since 2012 but has more recently launched HS4CC Academy, which is available to join for an annual cost of $199 per student. HS4CC partners with Arizona State University (ASU), Regent University (RU), Google and Petersen’s Test Prep.

Some states, including Georgia, offer up to 30 free dual-enrollment college credits across homeschool students’ 11th and 12th grades, which amounts to about 10 free classes across the two years. HS4CC takes families to the next level, not only by allowing students to take additional dual-enrollment classes at ASU and RU at reduced prices, but also by offering several Google certification courses at no extra charge for HS4CC students. Peterson's Test Prep subscription is $99 per 6 months which includes ALL credit by exam courses from CLEP, AP, and DSST - that's 60+ courses for $99.

Jennifer says HS4CC’s relationship with ASU began about five years ago. “They've just  been really great to us because we were, and I think we actually still are, their largest user of Universal Learner classes in the entire world,” she said. “We’ve had 15,000 families using Universal Learner courses.”

ASU works with private and public high schools to offer reduced tuition pricing, but previously they only had that in place for schools. Jennifer was able to meet with ASU, and they were able to offer HS4CC the same type of program. HS4CC supports independent homeschooling, so rather than requiring homeschool families to join a school. They set up a marketplace where parents and students could choose the courses that met their needs without oversight from an institution. Thus retaining the freedom associated with homeschooling. 

When someone enrolls in HS4CC Academy, they can shop for ASU courses for $299 for a three- or four-credit class. There are also a few one-credit classes, unique to HS4CC for $99. This is a potentially big savings for dual-enrollment students wanting to use early college credit as a jumpstart to their college career.

While it is true ASU offers classes to homeschoolers for only $25 each, it then costs $425 per class in transcription fees. By joining HS4CC, class prices are reduced to a flat rate of $299 after the enrollment fee, you avoid an additional fee, should you decide to transcribe the course. ASU, of course, is not all HS4CC offers.

“We just received a scholarship from Google, who granted us the ability to offer what we're calling tri-credit, which are certificates Google normally sells,” Jennifer said. “Google gave us a scholarship to be able to gift these to members of our community. They are a series of courses that result in a certificate that you can use for upskills or job training. The reason that we're calling it tri-credit is because parents can award high school credit and there is college credit attached to these certificates.”

HS4CC also has partnerships with Regent University and Peterson’s Test Prep. “We have a whole lineup of universities that have worked with the homeschool community for a long time,” said Jennifer. “They love what we do. They love our mission.

“We're 100% volunteer-led, and we're all about bringing the most opportunities to the homeschool community and just giving our people access to the types of programs that high school students already get for free or for low cost,” Jennifer continued. “That's how the Academy was formed, and that's the purpose.”

If this program seems interesting to you, head over to https://hs4cc-academy.org/ and follow the link to enroll in the academy.

-Joni Harrison