Has your homeschool student just graduated or is nearing graduation in the years to come? Are they wondering what to do when they graduate?
What Homeschoolers Can Do After Graduation
Although it’s one of the more common options, attending a four-year college is just one of many opportunities for students upon graduating high school. In this post, we want to review several paths your homeschool student can take after high school, including pursuing a four-year degree, enrolling in a gap year program, and taking a shot at entrepreneurship.
Path 1: Start College After High School
From the start of many children’s lives, parents plan for them to graduate high school and enter a degree-granting, four-year institution as a first-time, full-time student. We parents want our students to go to a good college, if it’s affordable, and we want them to have a good high school education to help them get there.
Homeschool parents with this traditional path in mind feel a special responsibility for “making it happen.” Rather than following the rules of an established high school institution, we as homeschoolers have chosen to be the educators, counselors, testing administrators, high school registrars, and principals ourselves. With help from a local community, we discover these roles are not hard to fill, just unfamiliar at first.
When your student’s homeschool high school curriculum is comprehensive and appropriately challenging, like Challenge, no other education is necessary at this time to prepare them for college. This means that taking college courses early in the sophomore, junior, or senior year can be beneficial, but isn’t essential. Students often have enough to focus on with pursuing a great high school education within the time available.
Path 2. Earn College Credits From Home
Alternatively, your high school student can begin earning college credits now. The most popular way to do this is to pursue dual enrollment opportunities. This means your student can take one course, earning credit toward both high school and college.
Many homeschool families find dual enrollment programs online, at their local community college, or through options like the CC Plus Program. While it’s certainly not necessary, this can be a way for your student to knock out many general elective courses they would otherwise typically have to take their first and second years of college, saving them both time and money.
What’s more, if your homeschool student takes dual enrollment courses during high school, they may not have to spend an entire four years at college to receive their degree. Rather, they may be able to enter as a sophomore or junior after their high school graduation. This makes dual enrollment incredibly appealing for many families.
To learn about our dual enrollment courses through CC Plus, click here.
Path 3. Take a Gap Year
For obvious reasons, a gap year can interest many students. Often, students just need time to think deeply about where God has called them on this journey we call life. Whether working a part-time or full-time job, pursuing an internship, traveling, or enrolling in a gap year program like the Odyssey Year with CC Plus, there are many great ways your student can spend the year after high school graduation to gain practical, hands-on experience and consider future career or life choices.
For example, our Odyssey Program is designed to improve recent graduates’ personal, academic, and spiritual development, all within a community of peers and mentors. During this gap year program for Challenge graduates, your student will have the chance to travel, receive up to 30 college credit hours, and discover who they are in Christ. To learn more, click here.
Path 4. Pursue an Online College Degree
More and more students are graduating from college online with 120 credits and a diploma. The time constrains of online college are much less rigid — students may complete their degrees in shorter or longer spans than just four years.
And while some online students may miss out on the social and interpersonal enrichment side of college, there are online options that encourage these interactions, such as our Undergraduate Program with CC Plus where students can receive their bachelor’s and associate’s degrees by taking college classes online.
To learn more about the CC Plus Undergraduate Program, click here.
Path 5. Take a Shot at Entrepreneurship
Next Steps Forward After Graduation
Of course, there are probably a thousand different options for what your homeschool student can do with their life after graduating high school, like joining the military, getting married and starting a family, following artistic pursuits, enrolling in a career-intensive bootcamp, or immediately entering the workforce. The point here is that college, while an amazing opportunity for many students, isn’t the only path forward. So, may God bless your efforts to find and follow His will for your homeschool family and your high school graduate!
Not yet a Classical Conversations member and interested in our community-based approach to homeschooling? We’d love to hear from you! To learn more about us, click here.
