Open Universities
Australia
Every homeschooling family should know in detail about Open Universities Australia.
Important facts:
1) ANY person in the world can start a degree with Open Universities Australia.
2) You do NOT need any prior qualifications - you do NOT need to finish school.
3) You do NOT need to be a particular age.
4) You do NOT need to go anywhere - the work comes to you and you can take the tests at a location convenient for you.
5) If you finish, you get a standard degree from one of 7 well-known Australian universities, NOT a degree from "Open Universities Australia". (Universities include: Curtin, Griffith, Macquarie, Monash, RMIT)
6) There is a very wide range of degrees available, including Law, Accounting, Commerce, Science, Information Technology, Education, Nursing.
7) Australians do NOT need to pay up front - there is a government loan system very much like HECS.
If the plan is that your kids may go to university, look hard at Open Universitites Australia. They have an excellent website: www.open.edu.au
In the old system, Open Universities Australia was known as "Open Learning Australia", and all courses had to be paid up-front. It is only recently that it has been possible to get government loans to pay for the courses. These courses are known as the "Higher Education Loans Program", or the "H.E.L.P." loans. These loans are paid back the same way as HECS ("Higher Education Contribution Scheme"), and are about as much. You don't need to pay them back until you are paying a considerable amount of Australian income tax (I think an income of over about $35,000) and they increase your tax by a small percentage.
The courses have assignments and tests. The tests are organised in Australian (and Indian) cities at regular intervals. If you are far from the city, you can organise to be supervised doing the test at a place of your own choosing, supervised by someone from a list of allowed occupations (including minister of religion).
An example of how it works. A 16-year-old home schooler decides he wants to be a nurse. He can start the Bachelor of Nursing Degree straight away. His parents can pay for the course fees up front, or he can use the H.E.L.P. government loans program and pay for his education when he starts to pay taxes. (I think under-18s can take out H.E.L.P. loans). If he finishes the program, he will have a standard Bachelor of Nursing qualification from the University of xx, with "Open Universities Australia" not mentioned on the document.
Another example: A home schooler decides she wants to be a lawyer. Open Universities Australia only offers law as a graduate degree ("Juris Doctor") so she needs to do some other degree first. (Note that most undergraduate law degrees are normally taken as a double degree with some other subject anyway.)
Another example: A homeschooler wonders if they are ready for university. They do a bridging course with Open Universities Australia.
In practice, I already know a 13 year old homeschooled girl who started an Open Universities Australia maths bridging course, but failed to finish (she did half the course and got 100% for it, in my opinion she should have faked her way through to finish the course like most people do). I'd say that she has a reasonable chance of finishing a uni degree by age 18.
Obviously, there is a difference between being allowed to start a university course and finishing that course. Many people should not start a university degree - but university ENTRANCE is a solved problem for Australian homeschoolers.