NHERI - article: Big Growth in Homeschooling Indicated This “School Year”

 The National Home Education Research Institute just published an article on Big Growth in Homeschooling Indicated This “School Year”.

Here is the summary:

The nationwide homeschool population has been growing at an estimated 2% to 8% per annum over the past several years (Ray, 2020). However, it appears that state governors’ restrictive lockdowns in response to a perceived health crisis, institutional schools’ responses, and parents’ and children’s experiences with crisis institutional schooling at home during the spring of 2020 will drive an accelerated and notable growth in homeschooling this coming school year. I have been telling the media that my conservative estimate is that there will be a 10% growth in the absolute number of homeschool students during 2020-2021 school year. If 10 percent materializes, that could mean roughly 2.75 million K-12 homeschool students during 2020-2021. Time will tell. 

 Regardless of the change in numbers, many new parents and children will be introduced to and enjoy the many benefits of homeschooling. If they take a reasonable and relaxed approach – and not try to reproduce institutional classroom schooling at home – they will experience a learning environment and educational process that includes more flexibility, parental involvement, customization, social capital, mentoring, value consistency, one-on-one instruction, tutoring, mastery learning, individualization, teachable moments, family time, calmness, safety, academic progress, healthy social interactions, and local community involvement than if they were involved in institutional schooling (Murphy, 2014; Ray, 2017).

It will be interesting to see just how many parents take the plunge.

Dr. Brian Ray (of the NHERI) was recently on MSNBC, with some homeschooling tips in MSNBC and New Homeschool Parents: Don’t Flip Out and Get Stressed. Relax. Covid-19 Tips.

Google may drive the final stake through traditional college education

Google Has a Plan to Disrupt the College Degree explains: Google's new certificate program takes only six months to complete, and will be a fraction of the cost of college.

The article starts with:

"Google recently made a huge announcement that could change the future of work and higher education: It's launching a selection of professional courses that teach candidates how to perform in-demand jobs. 

These courses, which the company is calling Google Career Certificates, teach foundational skills that can help job-seekers immediately find employment. However, instead of taking years to finish like a traditional university degree, these courses are designed to be completed in about six months."

later the article has:

"Google didn't say exactly how much the new courses would cost. But a similar program Google offers on online learning platform Coursera, the Google IT Support Professional Certificate, costs $49 for each month a student is enrolled. (At that price, a six-month course would cost just under $300--less than many university students spend on textbooks in one semester alone.)"

I assume the Google Career Certificates program will be able to scale up without too much trouble.  An important concept in economics is that if other alternatives become available the demand an high priced product will drop, resulting in a push for lower prices.  There are roughly about six million students in American colleges and universities.  If the Google Career Certificates program takes even just 1%, traditional higher education will suffer.

Hat tip: Instapundit