In this episode Richard Emmons assesses the affordability and value of the Ron Paul Curriculum compared to other homeschooling options.
How Much Does the Ron Paul Curriculum Cost?
There is an annual membership fee of $250 per family to join the Ron Paul Curriculum site. If you choose the manual renewal option then you pay $350. Most families choose the $250 auto-renew option.
Each course is $50 per student. There are no textbooks to purchase. There are some books required for the Business courses which are available at Amazon.com.
Homeschooling families come in all shapes and sizes. Let’s look at a few examples.
- One student taking 3 courses would be $400. This works out to $133 per course on average.
- One student taking 5 courses would be $500. This works out to $100 per course.
- Two students taking 5 courses each would be $750. This would be $250 plus 10 courses at $50. $75 per course.
- Four students taking 5 courses each would be $1250. This would be $250 plus 20 courses at $50. This works out to $62.50 per course.
The annual membership fee and the course fees come with a 60-day money back guarantee.
The Quality of the Ron Paul Curriculum
To fully calculate the value of any educational option, you need to consider the quality of the instruction as well as the curriculum cost. The courses of the Ron Paul Curriculum are taught by experts in their fields who know their subjects and know how to teach them to maximize comprehension and retention.
How does the Ron Paul Curriculum courses compare to college courses? Listen to John Hamilton who teaches 9th grade Physical Science and 12th grade Physics for the Ron Paul Curriculum
I put the same amount of rigor into the Ron Paul courses as I do my university courses and this particular course is very similar to a course I have taught.
This course is made up of 180 25 minute lectures that I deliver. This adds up to about 80 hours of instruction. 80 hours of lecture is what a student would get if they took two 3 hour university classes from me.
For a student to get 80 hours of lecture from me through the university, the student would have to pay about $1,400 in tuition and fees and then buy an expensive textbook, bringing the total cost to over $1,500, comparing this to what it cost for a student to take a course through the Ron Paul Curriculum and it is easy to see what a bargain it is. ~John Hamilton, Professor of Engineering, University of Arkansas, Ft. Smith branch
I am the instructor for the Business II: Launch Your Business course for the Ron Paul Curriculum. I also prepared 11 lessons for the Business I course. Each lesson takes several hours to prepare, record and edit. Instructors do their very best because they know that these video lessons will be seen for many years.
The Cost of Other Educational Options
- Do It Yourself. This is the traditional homeschooling approach. Parents attend homeschool conventions, choose the textbooks and do the teaching. Mom does lesson planning and helps students understand the textbook.
- DIY With Tutors. Mom gets help with this approach by hiring one or more tutors at $15 to $25 per hour. 3 hours per week at $20 per hour for 36 weeks would be $2,160.
- Online courses with live classroom instruction. One well-known Classical Christian school offers distance learning classes featuring a live instructor. These courses cost $595 for a one year course plus the cost of textbooks. The Algebra II textbook set costs $125. The textbooks could be shared between students or passed down to younger siblings until the textbook is revised.
Can the Ron Paul Curriculum Make College More Affordable?
College costs a lot of money these days. The University of Southern California (USC) jsut announced that tuition, books and housing will now cost $70,000 per year for the 2016-17 academic year! Even scholarships and financial aid it could easily cost $40,000 per year to take 10 classes at USC. That’s $4,000 per class! Thankfully there is a better way.
Many Ron Paul Curriculum courses prepare the student to take CLEP exams. The cost of the Ron Paul Curriculum course, the CLEP cram guide, and the CLEP examination combined is far less than the cost of a class in college. This is true regardless of whether the student lives at home and attends a community college or lives in the dorm at Harvard University.
The Ron Paul Curriculum is rigorous, writing intensive, and comprehensive. This results in many high school courses taught at the college level. This benefits the college-bound student because he or she can save time and money in college by taking lots of CLEP exams. The student who doesn’t go to college benefits because they get an education in English, mathematics, science and history which equals or surpasses college level work.
Students are encouraged to take the CLEP examinations throughout the middle school and high school years. For example. High school biology is typically taken in the 10th grade. Three or four years later the same student takes college biology as a freshman or sophomore. The professor has to assume that students remember next to nothing from high school biology. Many students may have taken physics or chemistry rather than biology. Why not take a CLEP test at the end of taking high school biology while the information is fresh?
Mom’s Sanity? Priceless!
The traditional homeschooling approach requires moms to teach several different subjects at several different grade levels with different learning styles. Mom needs to plan out the school year, prepare lesson plans, make assignments, present information, answer questions, grade tests, and read papers.
With the Ron Paul Curriculum, the mother is not the teacher. Instead, the video lessons present the material to the student on a consistent, systematic basis. The student can hit the PAUSE button or the REWIND button at any time to review the material. Your child can watch the same lesson 5 times if that’s what it takes. Parents can take the course right a long with the student if they desire; it’s not required. Students can help other students by answering questions on the forums. Moms tell us that the Ron Paul Curriculum has reduced their teaching time by 98%!
This lets Mom focus more on being a mom and lose the stress of keeping ahead of the students and getting it all done during the school year. She may find she has time to start her own home-based business. What a great way to develop new skills, keep old skills fresh, and earn money to help pay for vacations, college expenses and more.
How To Learn More About the Ron Paul Curriculum
26 Reasons to join the Ron Paul Curriculum: https://www.ronpaulhomeschooling.com/26reasons
Ready to enroll? Go to https://www.ronpaulhomeschooling.com/enroll
About the Instructor
Richard Emmons received his bachelors degree in Business Administration from California State University, Fullerton. Richard has over 30 years of business experience as a business owner, marketing consultant and CFO. Richard and his wife Kathleen homeschooled their four daughters from Kindergarten through 12th grade for 19 years.
Richard Emmons teaches Business II: Launch Your Business for the Ron Paul Curriculum.
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