Homecollege article by Voddie Baucham

This is a good article that shares many of the reasons we chose College Plus for Katie's advanced education.

(This article appeared originally as a blog on www.voddiebaucham.org)

Those who have followed my blog (or have heard me speak on the issue of education) know that I am an exponent of Christian education. I believe all education is religious in nature, education is inseparable from discipleship (Luke 6:40), and Christian parents, therefore, are called to give their children a Christian education. I am also convinced that these principles apply to every level of education whenever possible (I recognize that sometimes we need a course that is only offered in less-than-desirable places). Hence, I believe we must evaluate our plans and decisions regarding college education from a biblical perspective. In the past even avid Christian education advocates have often 'dropped the ball' when college rolled around.

I am also a homeschool dad who, like many home educators, had no idea how poorly educated I was until my wife and I began to teach our children at home. There is a saying among home educators: "Homeschooling is really the education of two generations at once." I envy my children their education. I have often said that my daughter, Jasmine, was better educated when she finished High School (at sixteen) than I was when I graduated from college. And yes, I mean that literally. It's not even close. As a result, we began to re-think the whole college idea.

My family and I have chosen College Plus as an affordable alternative to the University. College plus is a two-year program that offers a fully accredited BA for as little as 1/10 the cost of traditional college education. Moreover, it circumvents the college campus experience (though some degrees may require a course or two on a campus nearby, i.e., a science lab) I recommend College Plus highly to anyone fed up with the status quo. Jasmine (now eighteen) is currently enrolled, and we plan to start my son, Trey (now fifteen), next semester.

Here is a synopsis of a five-point "sermon" that my children have grown tired of hearing over the past few years (don't act like you've never preached the same sermon over and over to your kids). These five principles led us to choose College Plus over the traditional route:

1. Most BA Degrees Aren't Worth The Paper They Are Written On

What is a BA worth nowadays? Some estimate the value at nearly $1 million in earnings over a lifetime (compared to High School graduates).

"[O]ver an adult's working life, high school graduates can expect, on average, to earn $1.2 million; those with a bachelor's degree, $2.1 million; and people with a master's degree, $2.5 million." (Source: "The Big Payoff: Educational Attainment and Synthetic Estimates of Work-Life Earnings")

Is this worth the cost? Are there other ways to earn that kind of money? In fact, there are. If you gave your eighteen year-old $10,000.00 (half the first year cost at the University of Texas), and encouraged them to save $500.00 per month, they could have a million dollars in the bank by age fifty-one (8% rate of return). That's not being a Millionaire; that's having a cool million in the bank in addition to your other assets!

Send your kid to Harvard, for example, and you spend $250,000.00 (or accumulate that much in debt) in order for them to gain an estimated $900,000.00 more than the average High School graduate over a lifetime. That's insane! Especially if they come home with a "non-degree" (i.e., Sociology, Education, or practically anything ending in 'Studies').

2. Four Years Is Too Much Time to Waste

The years between eighteen and twenty-two are critical years in the life of a young man or woman. Why should they spend those four years in the company of fools (both students and faculty in most cases)? Remember, "Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm." (Proverbs 13:20) Therefore, we must "Look carefully then how [we] walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil." (Ephesians 5:15-16) College, should you deem it necessary, should be completed as early and as quickly as possible, and with minimal exposure to 'fools'. Get in; get out; get on with real life. Campus life can be quite enjoyable. It is also a breeding ground for some of the most wasteful, unsavory aspects of young adulthood. Don't buy the lie that says four years at university is a necessary season to "sew wild oats."

3. $80,000 (room & board/State School) to &250,000 (room & board/Ivy League) is Too Much Money to Spend

Lets face it, unless a person leaves a university with a degree in Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, and the like, they are probably leaving with a 'non-degree' (a non-degree is something subjective, politically motivated, designed to fill quotas, or keep athletes in school, and requiring little or no academic rigor). The overwhelming majority of kids in college today are wasting time and money on foolishness. And their parents are spending tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars for the privilege. I talked to a family who sent their daughter to an Ivy League school to get a degree in 'Women's Studies'. What on earth is 'Women's Studies' anyway? A quarter of a million dollars for that? Talk about poor stewardship. Instead of paying for that degree, find the person who figured out how to get people to pay a quarter of a million dollars for it and ask them to teach you marketing, political manipulation, and salesmanship!

Besides all of that, have you talked to a recent college graduate lately? Not exactly the sharpest tools in the shed. Don't take my word for it; listen to the Washington Post:

"Literacy experts and educators say they are stunned by the results of a recent adult literacy assessment, which shows that the reading proficiency of college graduates has declined in the past decade, with no obvious explanation."

"It's appalling -- it's really astounding," said Michael Gorman, president of the American Library Association and a librarian at California State University at Fresno. "Only 31 percent of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it. That's not saying much for the remainder."

What a monumental waste of time and money! Not only are people coming out of college with degrees they ought to be ashamed of; they can barely read to boot!

4. College is Not For Everyone

Listen to most people talk and you'd think that a college education is the birthright of every American, and that a degree was required for every job. However, that is simply not true. Not everyone is college material, nor should they be. There are very honorable trades that are disappearing before our eyes because no one seems to want to do them anymore. Moreover, instead of viewing college as a placed of advanced learning for people of advanced intellect, we have lowered entrance requirements, offered remedial courses, dumbed down the degrees, and rendered college virtually worthless:

"[O]f the 12 California state university colleges, 60% of students need remediation; a Florida study showed at least 70% of recent high school graduates need remedial courses when they enter community college - - in other words, they need to learn material they should have mastered in public high school - but did not - - costing an extra $59 million per year." (USA Today, November 24, 1997)

Meanwhile, there is a desperate shortage of technicians in many fields. My jeweler told me that Rolex was giving away the tools of the trade (valued at almost the cost of a college degree) to those willing to complete the training to work on their watches! This is just one example. There are dozens more. Lots of people do just fine without a college degree (see: the pool guy, the yard guy, the cabinet guy, the floor guy, etc.).

5. Most Universities Are Philosophically Antagonistic to Christianity

Here's a little scene I like to play out for my kids to illustrate the folly of many educational choice:

Mr. and Mrs. Christian, we here at 'Ivy League' University are philosophically opposed to virtually everything you stand for. We are among the most liberal, Darwinian, Secular Human, neo-Marxist, Feminist bunch on the planet. However, if you give us $250,000.00 we'll take your daughter off your hands for the next four years and make a man our of her. Between the money you've spent on her prep school, private tutors, and college education, she'll be put in a position where devoting herself to being a wife and mother would be a criminal act. Therefore, she'll put off marriage as long as possible, have no more than one.... maybe two kids, pay someone else to raise them -since she'll start off her career up to her eyeballs in debt-but don't you worry... She'll always be the most impressive person in the room when she mentions the fact that she was indoctrinated by us... So how will you be paying?

I believe in education. In fact, I think Christians should be more, not less educated than the general public. If we really believe what we say we do, then we should be stewards of the minds God has given us, and we should be leading the way like Augustine, Edwards, Copernicus, Galileo, Faraday and others who served God and their fellow man by honing, sharpening and engaging their intellects in lofty pursuits. However, It is not necessary to spend a quarter of a million dollars for a BA in order to get it done.

A BA is virtually worthless these days (with some notable exceptions). Many fields, realizing this collapse of value, now prefer (or require) advanced degrees. And once you have an advanced degree who cares where or how you got your BA? We've got to stop making the Pagans rich while they make us dumb. Take a look at College Plus. It may not be right for your family (there is no clean, easy, one-size-fits-all way out of this mess), but I hope it will at least give you another tool in the toolbox as you try to figure out the next step. And if you just happen to have a quarter of a million dollars burning a hole in your pocket, go plant a church. Or better yet, come with me to Zambia next time and we'll plant a hundred churches, or fund the education of a hundred pastors. In fact, we could probably do both.

VB

Ahhhhhh, its the weekend!

I am so glad it is Friday.

Katie, Will and Amy started their co-op classes today with our homeschool group. Katie is doing an in-depth study of American History and Literature with lots of projects and notebooking assignments. She loves the creative part but probably not all the reading that goes with it. Amy & Will are doing Geography and Physical Science. The geography will have lots of art projects and the science will have lots of experiments. They love the classes and so do I!

Greg and I have date night tonight. That hasn't happened in a while so I am excited. Tomorrow morning we have a business meeting for a new venture we are involved in. And then a cook-out for lunch with all the partners. Can't really give you any details on the business cause I don't know alot yet. I hope we will have time to finish the schoolroom side of the kitchen after that, so we can finish setting everything up and move another small bookcase into the kitchen. Greg is cooking us dinner tomorrow night...Shrimp and Grits from Paula Deen's cookbook. We had it at "Uncle Bubba's" a couple of years ago and it was wonderful. He is going to try to recreate that yummy goodness for us!

And Sunday...we are driving to GA! Greg has to work all week and we will get school done but then we get to visit and go on excursions with Granny! I haven't seen my buddies in a year and its time to visit. We will also make a trip to Mall of Georgia. Mom has been buying animals at "Build a Bear" to donate to Toys for Tots and she has some coupons that have to get used. We are also buying our tickets for Disney World at the Disney Store! Whoo Hoo! It'll be lots of fun. We are also working in a trip to "Whole Foods" and "Trader Joes" to stock up our pantry. They do look at me a bit funny when I buy 10 packages of spaghetti noodles or 6-8 cans of organic cranberry sauce but I just keep on going. I gotta go where I can buy products not loaded with MSG or high fructose corn syrup.

Hope ya'll have a good weekend!

Schoolbooks

Ahhhhh...the school books are here, the lesson plans and schedule sheets are printed. Now, I just have to get the school books and lesson plans together and figure out the schedule! Katie did computer work for me yesterday and redid the lesson plan sheets for this year, for our new books and co-op classes. I am going to try the scheduling in "Managers of Their Homes" by Steve & Terri Maxwell. We have a couple of weeks to figure this all out for our family.

Katie filled out her first college application yesterday. I expect several more will follow in the days to come. Now, we have to work on her highschool transcript. Hopefully, scholarship offers will come to the Jackson household!

We have been really lazy the last 2 days. I've got a cold/allergy/asthma thing going on and have sat on the sofa for 2 days. Between the sudafed, robitussin, inhaler and tylenol, I have been pretty zoned out. But, we have watched more movies, read books, cross stitched, looked at school books and been on the computer.

Greg, James, & Will started putting down the trim in the living room around the new wood floor last night. It looks great and matches like it was made together. Since the molding was so expensive that the flooring store sold, Greg decided to buy some at Home Depot and stain it himself. It matches the floor perfectly! Now, we can put books back on the bookshelves. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Field Trip & Dr. Diagnosis

Our field trip on Thursday was to a place called "Pump It Up". Basically it is a huge building filled with lots of inflatables. We all met at 9 to go in together (to get the discount). I took 3 pictures of the kids going down the giant slide. As I was taking the 4th picture of some friends...Amy came to get me and tell me Katie had been hurt. She jumped down in an inflatable and her right foot gave way under her. In Katie's own words....hit hurts, and I heard it snap. OK, I am not a doctor but I could diagnose this. And her ankle was swelling alot by then. One of the moms with our group was a nurse and she said get her to the doctor. Within 5 minutes, we were headed out the door with lots of help. And lots of pictures (we suspect this will end up in the yearbook). Amy and Will stayed to play with their friends and another mom brought them home.

Greg was about an hour away at a management training seminar for the state and we couldn't get him on the phone. As I was going to our dr.'s office, Katie texted him from my phone. We got to the dr. (Praise the Lord for good friends that are also your family dr.), I went in the back door to hunt for one of my favorite nurses to help me get Katie in. We got her to the room and the dr.'s first words out of his mouth were "this does not look good". Well, ok maybe I could be a dr. I figured that out. My other favorite nurse came to get her for x-rays. We got her there on a rolling office chair. The x-rays showed 3 or 4 breaks. The small bone that runs between her knee and ankle is broken in 2 places. The impact also broke the edge of the growth plate off the other side of the ankle. The dr. sent us to an orthopedic surgeon right away. As we were driving there, Greg called. He had not gotten the text. I told him everything that was going on and he decided to leave the seminar and drive home (yeah, Daddy!). The surgeon decided to take care of this asap. So our next stop was the hospital.

Greg got there in time to go through admissions with us and wait for the surgery. They did not find anything new when they did more x-rays or the surgery. They put 4 screws and a plate on her ankle to help with the healing. We got her back in the room about 2 hours after she left us. She did great with the hospital recovery and drank a coke and then later ate some Teddy Grahams. So she was really glad to get the IV out of her hand.

When we got home, dinner was waiting on us. Thanks to one of the homeschool moms in our group (she was the nurse that told me to get Katie to the dr.). She cooked lots of food which fed the 5 of us plus Allen, James and Andy. Amy and Will got the sewing stuff put up and then the big boys moved a bed downstairs for Katie. She cannot put any weight on her foot for the next 6 weeks. Then she will have physical therapy. It is a plus that she is a dancer (ballet) and it will be a form of therapy for her. However, I am not thinking she will be able to be in the recital in 10 or so weeks. Our family doctor said it was the worst break he has seen in his office. The surgeon said this is extremely unusual in someone her age. He also said she has very good muscle tone and strong bones. All of the staff were very nice and explained everything to us and to Katie before they did anything.

Side note: when we got to the hospital there was a little, elderly lady sitting in a wheel chair close to Katie. She kept trying to get Katies attention (she could not speak coherently). Finally the little lady lifted her hands toward heaven and closed her eyes. We are sure she was praying for Katie. I had been getting many phone calls from the homeschool group and Greg and when I could I went over to the little lady. I never could figure out what she said but I told her Katie was 16 and fell and broke her ankle. Then they came and took us to admissions.

In the midst of all this, the roofer called checking to see if the ins. had sent us the rest of the roof payment. I told him what was going on and that I would call him tomorrow. He is coming in a few minutes and asked if he could pray for Katie when he got here.

How awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She is on many prayer lists in several states and we are so thankful for our Christian friends!

Back to Real Life On Tuesday

Tomorrow is our back to real life day. The routines start in the morning at 7:30 am. The kids have to get up shower, dress, make beds/straighten rooms, and eat breakfast. Amy and Katie clean out the dishwasher and put everything away and reload the breakfast dishes. Will feeds and waters the dogs. All this will be done before 9. Oh yeah, I forgot about brushing the teeth.

Then we will meet in the living room and read our bible verses for the day, read about our State of the day (we are working through the 50 States in the order they were admitted to the Union), and reading over our new History book (Civil War to current times).

Then its down to the real work...math, language, independent reading (either their individual book or their book of the Bible they are reading through), journaling, and working on their Science for their co-op class. Hopefully this will be done by noon. Noon-1 is our break for lunch. 3 days a week after lunch they will cycle through typing, Spanish, music theory, and instrument practice. Everything except instrument practice is on computers, yeah!

Every Friday is our "different" day. They will have Science co-op classes every other Friday. These are labs and the kids love the experiments. Then its home ec day...they wash their bedsheets and remake the beds. They also, clean the bathrooms and vacuum the upstairs. Those specific duties rotate every month. Then we play games or just relax. It did take Will and Amy several weeks to realize that playing Yahtzee (which they love) is actually math! Ya gotta be sneaky when you can. I did relent and let them add up their scores at the end of the game on the calculator.