Age waiver denied from TESU. Policy changed Jan. 1, 2018

[dfrecore]

I might consider inverted college plans.  Pick everything you might seriously take when of age and then avoid that.  Then take all of the other stuff now.  It would make a person incredibly well rounded and remove the time component completely.

Yes, a shifting or even a 'slow down' is an option too.  Realistically, we could take the full two years to complete the second half of their degrees.  They may even need a slower pace as they move into more difficult material and we do have the availability of B&M classes through dual enrollment.  The part of this type of plan that makes me nervous is that it relies on the Big 3 not making any drastic changes.  TESU has already upped the age requirement and I don't know if the others will follow or not.  I plan on calling TESU later this week to talk with them and get a better understanding of our options.

I think that if I was in this spot (and we did homeschool up until recently), I would encourage my kids to not be in any kind of rush to grow up.  If the degree situation at the Big 3 changes, then we will have plans B, C & D to work on.

I personally would not encourage someone so young to be in a rush to "get the degree out of the way" because I don't really subscribe to that line of thinking.  Rather, I think teens/early 20's is a great time to really explore and figure out what you want to do.  I'm ok with my kids living at home during that time, and letting them spread their wings a bit, especially if they don't know what they want to do or where they want to work when they're 18.  I have 1 that has no clue, and 1 that already knows kind of what he wants to do (USNA & become a pilot).  So I'm trying to find ways to encourage him especially to pursue those things that interest him, like becoming a pilot through Civil Air Patrol and do some leadership stuff.  For my other one, we spend a lot of time looking at careers as we come upon them, all without actually doing any college courses for now (although she's open to it in the fall).