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As many recognize, homeschooling has been booming in recent years and promises to keep growing. The most recent numbers from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) hail from 2012 and suggest that 1.8 million children are now educated at home.
Compared to public school students, studies suggest that homeschoolers perform up to 30 percentile points better on standardized tests, have higher college GPAs and completion rates, and may even be better adjusted socially. Judging from these numbers, it would seem that homeschooling definitely benefits the individual student.
But what about the nation as a whole? Are there any immediate benefits which homeschoolers offer to their communities?
One of the most obvious is the money each homeschool student saves his or her state. Based on state spending per student multiplied by the approximate number of homeschoolers in each state, the following statistics demonstrate how much savings homeschoolers are passing off to their fellow citizens each year:
- Alabama $203.9 million
- Alaska $67.5 million
- Arizona $249.1 million
- Arkansas $137.7 million
- California $1.8 billion
- Colorado $227.6 million
- Connecticut $31 million
- Delaware $36.4 million
- D.C. $37.2 million
- Florida $729.8 million
- Georgia $468.1 million
- Hawaii $75.1 million
- Idaho $58.4 million
- Illinois $798.6 million
- Indiana $341.3 million
- Iowa $157.3 million
- Kansas $144.7 million
- Kentucky $190.6 million
- Louisiana $240.4 million
- Maine $68.6 million
- Maryland $381.6 million
- Massachusetts $429.5 million
- Michigan $510.5 million
- Minnesota $297.3 million
- Mississippi $123.3 million
- Missouri $279.4 million
- Montana $50.2 million
- Nebraska $109.6 million
- Nevada $113.8 million
- New Hampshire $80.7 million
- New Jersey $736.2 million
- New Mexico $98.7 million
- New York $1.7 billion
- North Carolina $1 billion
- North Dakota $40.3 million
- Ohio $614.5 million
- Oklahoma $149.5 million
- Oregon $222.3 million
- Pennsylvania $298.6 million
- Rhode Island $64.8 million
- South Carolina $214.8 million
- South Dakota $37 million
- Tennessee $262.4 million
- Texas $1.2 billion
- Utah $117.8 million
- Vermont $43 million
- Virginia $366.7 million
- Washington $327.8 million
- West Virginia $117.1 million
- Wisconsin $209.7 million
- Wyoming $44 million
It should be noted that because homeschool registration varies by state, these numbers are likely conservative, making the savings even more than recorded above. In fact, a recent report by the Pioneer Institute suggested that on a national scale, homeschoolers save taxpayers $22 billion every year.
Such savings should give us pause. Homeschooling parents pay taxes like everyone else, yet they also fork out a lot of money each year to pay for books and other equipment. Should some of this savings be passed on to them, or would such a process only invite more government control into individual homes?
Furthermore, if homeschooling produces such a good product for such a large monetary savings, doesn’t it seem like states would want to encourage more parents to pursue such an education option?
[Image Credit: Flickr-Alexandre Normand | CC BY SA 2.0]
This post How Much Money Each State Saves Thanks to Homeschooling was originally published on Intellectual Takeout by Annie Holmquist.
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