Is home schooling cheaper than school for tax payers?

Question

Is home schooling cheaper than school for tax payers?

Answer 1

In my perception, you are asking that if tax payers chose either public school OR all people home schooling, it would obviously be much less expensive for tax payers to home school. Not only do schools spend an average of $4000 per students, that does not take into account the billions of dollars spent on infrastructure, ie teacher and administrators salaries, utilities, maintenance and building new schools as well as admin buildings.

Tax payers in a system with no public schools could easily afford to allot enough cash for a parent to stay home as well as purchase excellent curricula and materials. In addition, there would be millions left over to create systems that would be beneficial to society (ie democratic schools, life long classes for all generations, etc).

Of course, this will NEVER happen, because of the logistics of what to do with thousands of teachers, therapists, and administrators who would be out of jobs. And what about all the free time kids would have, since home schooling takes about 1/4 the amount of time of public schooling. They can't have jobs, because we're already in a recession with over 14 million unemployed. Something about this society is not working well.

Answer 2

Yes, because every HS'ed child who is not filling a seat in a public school is saving the state money.

However, as HS'ed parents, we still have to pay property taxes to the school district (as do people w/o kids).  Then on top of the $2600 we pay to our district, it costs $3000 to home edcuate our son every year.  That's still way cheaper than the PS spends on each kid - $8000 and up.

Answer 3

With the way politcs is going it really would make no difference in the taxes you will have to pay. I disagree with the socialist ideals of all the democrats running for President, but I also dont agree with any of the Republicans except Ron Paul.

Having the government subsidize anything just makes it go up, that is how inflation is created. You could make a difference and home-school your children. My parents did that with me and all my siblings (7 in total).

It was hard on my parents to manage work and teaching but we were all top students in College (which we started to attend prior to our 18th birthday).

Your children will appreciate having been home-schooled as they grow older, public education is a waste of your time and theirs.

Answer 4

You need to pay your taxes regardless of whether or not your child goes to public school.

Answer 5

If you homeschool entirely free, then yes. You still pay taxes for public school, but you don't pay for uniforms (if they're required), school lunches, lab fees, locker fees, and extra supplies that aren't always necessary (a box of tissues for the classroom for example, or a specific type of something like strictly blue ereasable pens, or strictly a black composition book)

If you don't homeschool absolutely free, it still might be cheaper in the long run if you consider the overall cost of the above listed items (among others). When you homeschool, textbooks can be sold when they're no longer in use, and the money can be put towards books and supplies for the following year. Computers can cut down on the cost of notebooks and folders if you do most of your written work on a word processing program and back up your data. Clothes shopping might save you money as your kid will still dress presentably, but wont be pressured to have some hot new style just because the popular kids wear it. You don't need to buy a backpack for school, or a lunch box. Children can share books and other materials. Materials may even be shared between households or borrowed from libraries or downloaded off the internet. If it isn't cheaper, it may at least come out about even.

It can also be much much more expensive though. Books are expensive when baught new, and sometimes you can't find a certain book used or on sale. You may not have a computer, or the right software to get school done on a computer and would need to get one or spend money on notebooks, paper, folders, pens, calculator, file drawer, etc. You may decide to buy a computer, or to homeschool through a private or online school that charges tuition. You may wish to use university fascilities for labs which may cost you a lab fee. You may want to buy your own lab equipment for subjects like biology, chemistry, physics... While this can be done inexpensively through discount websites for homeschool science, or from other homeschoolers, or even just by using household things for science, it has the potential to be costly. You may want to obtain special materials for subjects of interest... a telescope, a robotics kit, fiber optics kit, chick eggs to hatch, and so on.  You may want to enroll your child(ren) in private music lessons, art classes, fencing, gymnastics, martial arts, swimming lessons, horseback riding, dance, and so on, and then you'd be faced with the cost of  the program, supplies needed for it, and transportation to and from. The same goes for sports and camps and clubs, but this can be overcome if you're in an area where the public school is required to allow homeschoolers to participate in their events and activities, and if you want to do that. There are also free activities, classes, etc offered through libraries and community centers.

All in all, homeschooling is what you make of it. This goes for the quality of the experience as well as the cost. It will always varry from household to household, and further still from child to individual child.

I hope this helps.

Answer 6

I guess I don't get the question - anyone who owns a home pays property taxes (most of which go to the local schools), and city taxes apply to everyone.  Homeschool families pay the same taxes as everyone else.

Are you asking something along the line of "with less kids in public schools, will our taxes go down?"  It'd be nice, but not likely...I do, however, find it kind of funny that some will argue that not having my child in school will cost the school money.  Isn't that money supposed to go toward educating my child?  And if he's not there, then why would the school need the money?

Just my thoughts :-)

Answer 7

No we still pay our taxes that support the public system. On top of that we have to find or buy the things we need to be sucessful in home schooling. No matter what way you chose to home school boxed or unschooled you still shell out a lot of money each year to buy the supplies you need.

Answer 8

I would say so, since there are a lot of thing no longer needed that the community would no longer have to pay for, from salaries, to retirement funds, building funds, buses, and so on.

Yes, we still do have to pay taxes, but these could be used for infrastructure, emergency service, police, fire fighters, and all those services that are sorely underfunded for the job they need to do for, and in their communities.

At least when the monies would be allocated to these the whole community would benefit much more.

Schools should be paid for, and funded by those who want to use these services; in this case either the students, or the parents.

When we speak of parental rights, we should not look the other way when it comes to parental responsibilities.

It should be no different then how colleges are set up.

Schools can also get extra funding from private funding sources, and businesses in the community.

It takes the public schools between $8000.00 to $14.000.00 per student, most private schools do the job for $4000.00 or less, and home schooling costs us less than $1000.00 per year for all three.

Do the math.

;) I disagree, after all our years of home schooling we have never spend more than maybe a bout $500.00 per child for start up costs.

Many of these materials/books are still being used today, or have been sold/traded to cut the cost of new materials.

The cost, and especially now with the Internet and all the discount suppliers, as well as the home school coop's have greatly reduced the cost of home schooling; it just depends on how resourceful the parents are willing to be.

Using a prepared, or boxed curriculum can drive up the cost significantly, and some rival the cost of private school tuition, however it does not have to be that way at all.

Answer 9

Taxes you have to pay regardless so what you should be asking is it cheaper to homeschool than to send your child to Public School.

Depends on how much you spend on your curriculm and extras.

Things that you tend to pay for when your child goes to Public school are their supplies, special clothing, extras they may have during the year, fundraisers.

I really don't feel taxes and saving money should even be in the equation when you are thinking of homeschooling and if they are then you have the wrong motivation.

For every child that doesn't attend the school they actually lose money. Each child that misses a day of school they miss out on the extra money. They want to get in as many kids as possible.

The funny thing is you would think they would be happy to see more people homeschooling so there will less overcrowding in the classrooms, but they don't. They only care about the "All Mighty Dollar." Gone are the days where they truly enjoyed teaching for the love of teaching. Everyone is just there for the money.

Answer 10

you question is unclear.  Taxes that support schools are the same for everyone.  Now if everyone who has children chose to homeschool then the schools would close and we would no longer need to pay taxes to support them.  This will never happen.  

As a parent who homeschools the cost varies enormously with the choices you make on how to homeschool.

Answer 11

Homeschooling is not cheap unless you purposely work to make it cheap.  I spent almost $1500+ per year for my kids.