(upbeat music) - Welcome friends to this episode of the "Everyday Educator" podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Bailey, and I'm excited to spend some time with you today as we encourage one another, learn together, and ponder the delights and challenges that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime. Whether you're just considering this homeschooling possibility, or deep into the daily delight of family learning, I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.

But don't forget, although this online community is awesome, you'll find even closer support in a local CC community. So go to classicalconversations.com and find a community near you today. Well, listeners, I have a treat for you today. My guest is someone very well-versed in all things classical conversations from a young age through his now working adulthood.

We are gonna talk today with Daniel Shirley, and we are going to be exploring CC+. I know as many of our families look toward the fall, believe it or not, summer is more than halfway over. And as we focus on the academic offerings for the fall and our family's planning, many of you with students going into high school or well into their high school years have questions about what else is available academically for your student.

And so we have with us today, Daniel Shirley, who is the Classical Conversations, the CC+ Undergraduate Program Manager. Daniel, thanks for joining me today. - Yeah, thanks for having me, Lisa. Glad to be back. - I am excited about what you're gonna share today. I will be really honest.

When I first got involved with Classical Conversations, when my family joined, my girls were young. I was focused like most young moms and dads on making it through each day and doing the very best and providing a wide range of experiences for my children. And I occasionally looked down the road to the high school years, and I had people ask the age old question, but what will you do when they get to high school?

And I had some answers and some of them were glib and some of them were well thought out, but very few of them included dual enrollment. At that point, I didn't even know what that was probably. And I have to say it was a long time ago when I was in that position.

So CC+ did not exist. And so I am super glad for you to come on and share with all of us this resource new to some, but it's been around long enough to be well-established. This resource, this program that families can take advantage of. I wanna start though with your experience of the CC Challenge Program, because that's where most of us are coming from, CC programs that we already understand.

And I know, Daniel, you know the CC Challenge Program both from the student perspective and the director/tutor perspective. Now I'm guessing, actually I know, that the challenge program was chosen for you. You didn't exactly choose it. I know your mom and I know your dad and I know that they really believed this was the vehicle for the best possible education for you and for your siblings.

But let me ask you this, what did you initially like about the challenge program? Yeah, I think one of my favorite things about the challenge program, especially in the old days when things were still forming, it really was this heightened sense of, I would say like discipline equals freedom.

I think I told the story on the last podcast about when I transitioned from the foundations program into challenge A and I had that syllabus for the first time, challenge guide, and it was my birthday, but I had an assignment due and I couldn't take my birthday off. You know, there was this like sense of responsibility and of completing the work that I didn't exactly have quite as fleshed out in the foundations program.

And so moving into the challenge program, that was really the thing, looking back on it, that I found very helpful to understand. If I moved through the work, if I completed what was necessary and brought the required artifacts to the community day, I was free in some sense. As soon as I completed those steps, I then had my time to do with what I would like.

And I feel like that's a principle that carries pretty well into the adult world, right? Although the responsibility has become more numerous, so. - I love that. I love that, Daniel, that what you're saying is, I mean, and it makes sense from the perspective of a young student, the academics were maybe not what you loved the most, but I love that you chose to show us a life skill, a life perspective.

The challenge program teaches us more than how to be smart and how to learn even, learn in an academic sense. I like that you reminded us that part of what our students learn is how to manage themselves. And you know, you're right. It is a great awakening for a student to recognize that they are pulling the strings, that they can dilly-dally around and waste the day and then have to miss something that was planned for them or alongside of them because they have to get the work done and they chose to use their free time in a frivolous way.

And so I love that what you really appreciated was learning about the power you had over yourself and your own schedule, that's cool. - Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the thing that kind of, it goes hand in hand with this idea of learning how to learn a skill that's being trained inside the challenge program and curriculum.

'Cause you find that, let's say the more efficient you can be in your discipline, the more freedom you have on the other end of that and the more productive that freedom can be. Again, because that discipline doesn't just kind of stop, it continues to permeate your attitude, not just toward your academics, but also toward hobbies or other interests and relationships, friendship, you know.

Learning how to learn is not just constrained to that academic realm, which all of your listeners know. - Absolutely, absolutely. It's a great reminder that as homeschoolers and as classical Christian homeschoolers, we are developing our students' character alongside of any academic pursuit that we go at as a family.

We are developing character. And what you're talking about is a character issue, learning how to manage your freedom. That's really great. So was there anything, and maybe there wasn't, was there anything that didn't fit you as well in the challenge program, at least initially? - That's a good question too.

I think that because it was so early on when I used to, 'cause I mean, I think, you know, it's been almost, what, like 18 years since Challenger, something like that. - Yeah, that's a scary thought, Daniel. - It's been a minute. And so I think pedagogically or, you know, the mode of the teacher or the tutor coming alongside the students in seminar or in the community day was still in formation.

And so looking back on it, I do see very much how there were instances, especially as I moved more into high school, where even in the CC community day, we would still do, you know, exams or tests. - Right, right, yeah. - That would then be handed in and graded and then handed back to us.

And it would be, you know, you've got an 87 or you've got a 76. - Right. - So there was still some pedagogical formation that I think is interesting based on the way that, you know, CC has kind of come more into its footing with, oh, we don't really believe in the quantitative tests for things like human studies, liberal arts studies.

- Right, right. - And there's other artifacts that we can engage with and see from the students, like their ability to lead the seminar, their ability to bring good questions in and to show mastery of the content in ways that are not, you know, maybe quantitative in their work.

- Yeah. I love that you brought that out because it gives me the opportunity to remind parents, hey, y'all, we are still learning how to do this big, hairy, audacious task too. And so 20 years ago, okay, that sort of freaks me out too, Daniel, 20 years ago is when my family first found out about classical conversations.

And the educator, the homeschooler that I was then is a far cry from the homeschooler that I became as I learned, not just academically along with my girls, but like you were saying, as I learned the better pedagogy of being a classical educator. So mom and dad, don't despair.

The educator that you are now is not the only educator you will always be. And you will grow in your understanding of how to lead your homeschool more classically. You're gonna grow along with your student. And that is the beauty of this journey that we have together. Let me ask you this, Daniel, because I also know that you have been, and I'm not sure if you are still, a challenge director yourself.

So what drew you into becoming a challenge director? Did you enjoy that whole idea of partnering with parents and students? - Yeah, absolutely. That's what drew me into the, it was actually a kind of a legacy thing. My mom was tutoring challenge four. Heather Shirley was tutoring challenge four at our local community.

And this was when she was still quite busy. And so she ended up having to kind of step down from a long-term challenge four position in our local community. And I had subbed for her a handful of times as I was getting settled in. And she asked me, "Are you interested in moving into the tutoring space?" And I was like, "Ooh, I think this could be a lot of fun." And I was also curious, almost experimentally, just to see what would it be like to be a challenge four tutor that was not a homeschool mom, or that wasn't like a parent of a student in community.

Having been through the process of graduating from challenge four, maybe more recently, in your quotes, than some of the other tutors, what could I do to help prepare the students to move into the next stage of their education? If it was gonna be college, or if they were moving into their family businesses to work there, or doing trades, or something like that.

And then the other thing that I was interested in primarily was I'm an English kind of major. I was interested in what would it look like to kind of reframe the art of writing for these challenge four students, especially with the senior thesis process, which was not in the challenge program when I was moving through it.

- Right, exactly. - I was like, maybe if I could direct, and I can participate in this thesis process a little bit that I didn't get to have. But it was like essays, often students will see essays as assignments governed by something like a quantitative metric, like a word count.

- Right. - And if they reach that word count, they complete the essay. - And they could be done. - And they could be done, right? I was guilty of this as a student as well. - Sure. - But the more that I thought about it, I was like, I'm not sure that's why we write essays.

And so I wanted to get back into that tutoring space and play with this pedagogy, this more classical pedagogy of writing and why we write. And while I was kind of digging down that rabbit hole, I learned that the word essay is a French word. I don't know, do you know what it means, Lisa, the word essay?

- It's to find out, isn't it? To strike out, to ferry forth. - Right, yeah. And it's like, it just means to get out there and to try. And so, especially with the thesis, I found it very encouraging and very satisfying. And I think my students did too. We could probably ask one of them at some point, but we'll see.

But the aspect of, don't waste your time writing about something that you don't care about. And the theme of challenge four being leadership, it's where you're leading your own education at this point. That's what you're getting ready to move out into. There's gonna be less hand-holding as you move into the next chapter.

And so, you have to find what you care about genuinely. And then that question that's kind of on the fringe of your knowledge that you explore through slow motion thinking, which is what I think writing is, that was something I was just super excited to bring to the students and encourage them in.

And so, that, I don't know, is one particular thing that drew me in, but then also just participating in this kind of legacy of home education, different flavor. - That is great. What a good, I'm making myself a note now to have you back in the fall to talk about writing essays and how to light the fire in students.

Because I think that you struck something really key, Daniel, if we can help students understand that they are writing not just to satisfy a prompt or a word count, but what we need them to do is somehow connect with this piece of literature or this point in history or this thing that they're supposed to write about and find what lights their fire.

I love that. So, I'm gonna be knocking on your door again, is what I'm saying. So, I want you to think, for just a minute, I want you to think about students that you have known, because as a challenge director, you have interacted with a lot of students and a lot of families.

And as the CC+ undergrad program director, you've interacted with a lot of families. Think about students and families that you've known, that you've talked to, maybe who were just considering the challenge program. As challenge directors, we've all had people contact us and say, "Well, I'm sort of interested, "but I don't really know." What drew those people to challenge programs?

And also, what gave them pause or made them hesitate to join? Yeah, this is a really good question. I think it's worth thinking about a good bit. And there's at least two things that I find that draw people in. And they're pretty fascinating, because I feel like mostly, it's not all, but a lot of students or families get drawn to something like CC or to CC, based on negatives out in the other options, right?

So, I would say one of the primary reasons that families will reach out and inquire. Into the challenge program is just the environment of public education, being something that they see is hostile to the values that they hold and their family has. So, that's a big one. Yep, yep, yep.

The other one would be possibly like the excessive cost of private education options. And so, those are like the negative reasons. And then, so I'd say that probably makes up maybe 75 to 80% of the students that I've talked to. All right. Then the others are, they see the books that we read, and they just get super excited.

Yep, yep. Those are fun. Those are quite fun. But the others, the others are also good. It's just maybe that sometimes they come into the program based on a criticism of something else, rather than a desire or a fascination with what it is that we're up to. Yeah, you're right, you're right.

People are running away from something more often than they're running to something at times, it seems like. So, what do you think, what gave them pause? What made some of the families you interacted with hesitate to join a challenge community? Yeah, I think this ties back with this discipline equaling freedom thing.

Once you start understanding, maybe you go to a practicum or you start investigating the challenge guide for the coming year, and then you recognize that really you're only meeting one day a week with the community, I think that families start to recognize that the responsibility of the program gets kind of, you know, like it's supported by the community and by the tutor, but it's sat squarely in the family's lap.

And that particularly gets intimidating for the high school years. Students move into that and they start realizing, oh, okay, cool, this is gonna be a lot of work, I'm gonna have to be more disciplined than I am already. And, you know, parents have to be comfortable administrating their own homeschool, which I feel like if you're not maybe in that camp of like unschooling, you know, kind of, you trust institutions still, then it can be maybe a little bit intimidating to recognize that you're the principal and the administrator of your homeschool, putting that seal on a transcript, so.

- Yes, and, you know, there are still lots of us who look at some of the subjects in the challenge years, physics, I'm looking at you, and calculus, I'm staring you down. And they are, or Daniel, even the literature for parents who say, I don't really, I've never been a good writer, how am I supposed to assess my students' writing?

And if I think it's not quite up to par, I don't know how to fix it. And so I think that that plays into it too, just that we feel, well, we fear that we can't give our children the best education, what we really want for them, because we feel a lack within ourselves as parents.

So I think that that can happen too. - Yeah. - I've also, and I wonder if this has been your experience, I've also encountered families that hesitate to join a CC community because they've been enticed by the idea of dual enrollment at community colleges. - Oh, for sure, yeah.

And so before we get into that, I wanna take a step back to parents being intimidated by the literature real quick. - Yeah. - It's funny, there's a introduction that C.S. Lewis writes to "On the Incarnation" by Athanasius, I believe. - Uh-huh, uh-huh. - And it's a really good essay, so I encourage all the listeners of the audience to go read that essay if they haven't read it before.

There's some iconic C.S. Lewis quotes that come out of that essay. But one of the things that he says is that we should read old books, and that if we decide and actually just kind of step across that threshold and enter into the old books, the quote-unquote primary sources, right?

Sources that are not anyone writing about anything else. So I'm not reading a modern commentary on the Iliad. - Right, right. - Instead I'm going to read the Iliad. He says that when we do that, we often find that the original text is much more approachable than the commentaries that are written about that text.

And so if we've, in our modern sentiment, read a modern piece of material about an old book, we come away and we're like, wow, that old book is very complicated. And I think people would be refreshingly, or would be refreshed to actually just step into some of those old texts like Lewis suggests that we do and recognize that there may be more hospitable than the modern commentaries, so.

- You know what? That is very wise counsel. I think a lot of us are turned off to what we might find lovely and approachable by the reputation that some of these subjects or works of literature have. Somebody has told us that it's too high brow for us and we bought into that.

You are right. And there is almost always something that will resonate with you if you read something you think is too hard for you. You will find something to grab onto and it grows from there. So I love that. Thank you for the reading suggestion as well. That's great.

That's great. So let me ask you, have you heard people who say, well, I'm either going to do the challenge program or I'm going to do dual enrollment because I think I can't do challenge and dual enrollment. It would just be too much. - Yeah, I often find that they kind of say that, but they say that, I guess, by their actions rather than actually, it's kind of like, they don't drop out of the challenge program entirely all the time.

- Right, right. - They'll be like, I was directing challenge for two years ago and probably I had a class of eight, six of them were probably enrolled in dual enrollment somewhere and they were doing the challenge program. And obviously that tension, it's real inside the classroom, whenever you meet on that day, 'cause they're tired from going to class early that morning or maybe they're coming in or doing something.

So often the challenge program does get deprioritized if not dismissed altogether for the sake of something like dual enrollment. Yeah, it's common. - Yeah, so people don't necessarily stop being challenged students. They just stop being challenged by the work because they don't do it as much. They just let that go off.

Well, I know, like I said before, when I became a challenge director years and years ago, there was no programmed answers for people wanting, for families wanting a dual enrollment experience. So tell us how CC+ came about and why it was developed and then you can just go ahead and tell us the pluses of the program.

- Yeah, definitely. So CC+, we've been playing with this for a little while now, kind of what is the mission and vision of CC+ and really I think it's this idea of opening college doors for classical conversations families. Our goal is to shrink that kind of perceived obstacle of college as a barrier for homeschool families and for classical conversations families in particular.

And when students are going into the dual enrollment space, families are putting their kids into community colleges to give them like a taste of the college experience before they just send them out. And I think it really, I mean, it's kind of, it's not always a bad idea, but we think that there's probably a better way to do it.

And that's why we kind of, you know, have started developing this program is so that we can have students enter into and get a taste of the college experience while they're still in the community of their homeschool and their classical conversations group, but they're interacting with college professors and with college level work.

And, you know, whatever that means, that's happening inside the CC+ program, so. - I like that. It is a way to spread your wings while you are still on the flying field of your family, you know, within their care and they are there. I love the idea of experiencing college and interacting with even more outside mentors than your challenge tutor, while still being under the authority and guidance of your parents.

I love that. So those are definitely pluses that I agree, that I can see and the benefits to families and to the students. So what's the, okay, so in CC+, the students are still part of a CC community. So what's the plus stand for? - Yeah, so the plus originally as an idea was meant to be kind of to indicate the partnership between CC and another institution, a college most likely.

And so it would be like classical conversations plus Southeastern University, or classical conversations plus Bryan College or any of the other, you know, colleges that we've partnered with through the years. Southeastern University is our primary partner and the plus is kind of indicates the additive relationship. - Okay, that's great, the additive relationship, yeah.

- Yeah. But in regards to like the why CC+ does what it does, why we're plusing with another institution is, I mean, obviously a huge one in the world today is gonna be cost. And families, you know, especially with the way that the, you know, just the kind of economic norms are headed and the way that they are right now, everyone's looking to save some way somehow.

And the traditional model of dual enrollment being, let's say, free in a lot of states and then these dual enrollment programs having a partnership with another institution that's then very expensive and they're kind of directly funneled. Like the free dual enrollment inside the current model will almost always make the money back some way somehow.

It's free to get students in the door and then they charge you money after you've committed and are, you know, on a track. - Yeah, the Tonstoffel from challenge one is a real thing in the real world. There is no such thing as a free lunch, yep. - Exactly.

And so one of the things that we've done is try to optimize this cost model. And so we thought, well, why don't we do something kind of backwards? Let's charge a little bit of money for the dual enrollment, or we call it the concurrent enrollment program, which is still like right around midline of a cost for normal dual enrollment programs at 167 per credit hour.

But we align it with all of the challenge curriculum and the assignments from the guide. And so that makes it a time save because students focus all their attention on one set of curriculum and are doing all their assignments from there. And then rather than charging them a bunch more money when they enroll as a student at a four-year university, that's where we have the undergraduate program, which is basically an inversion of the model that the free dual enrollment funneling into expensive four-year education.

We have dual enrollment that's priced at a moderate level and then funnels into an incredibly affordable option with the undergraduate program. And so that is something that I encourage everyone to check out. If you're a parent of a CC student or if you're a CC graduate and you want to move through your bachelor's degree, we have an option for that and degree plans.

It's all on our website, classicalconversationsplus.com, but we're really proud of this program and SEU has been pretty awesome to work with to create this undergraduate option. - That's really great. So you gave us a ton of information there about two programs that are, they're sister programs, but they're different because you talked about the concurrent enrollment program and that would be for students who are still in high school, correct, who are also going to get college credit.

And we're gonna talk about that 'cause I have a bunch of questions for you. I think my listeners really want to know. And then the second program that you mentioned is the undergraduate program where students could continue their relationship with SEU and get a bachelor's degree, right? Okay, awesome, awesome.

Now, I know that there are parents and families, especially at this time of the year, who are very eager to get the details about this concurrent enrollment program or 'cause maybe they're interested in enrolling this fall and time is drawing nigh and it's getting short. And then we have families that want to add it into their planning options down the road so they can think about it.

So I want you to tell us all the things, okay, but also tell my listeners one more time where to find all this information again when the podcast is over so you can give us the website again. And then if there are any counselors or real people, Daniel, that they can call or contact in some way to talk to, that would be awesome.

- Yes, for sure. Okay, so we'll move through this and maybe I'll ask for a reminder of the string of questions in a moment. Okay. - Oh yeah. - Number one, classicalconversationsplus.com is gonna be where you can go to find all the information. On that website, there's a get started button on the concurrent enrollment page.

That button takes you to a registration guide. On that registration guide is a information portal with way too much information. (laughing) And so if you wanna just do some reading, follow those kind of prompts that I just gave and you can go in, you can see brief descriptions of every course that we offer in alignment with the challenge curriculum.

I believe there's 29 different courses. - Wow, okay. - With assignments all listed out and materials drawn from the challenge guide. So you could look into and investigate every course available with the concurrent enrollment program before signing up for any of them. - Gotcha, that's awesome. Fact finding mission, good.

- Exactly, exactly. So that's definitely something to check out on the website. As far as counselors go, obviously there's gonna be a contact us option at the bottom of the website for our email and then I believe it's my phone number. - Oh, well you may soon find out my friend.

- Yes, that's on the bottom of the website. And so I will be happy to talk with anyone about the CC plus and point people in the right direction for what they need to do. There's also a concurrent or on the undergraduate program page, there's a student consultation option.

And so we've partnered with another institution called Solid Rock Consulting and they offer complimentary student consultations to all of our CC families. And so if you're interested in getting more information, you can also go there and schedule a consultation. So those are a couple of ways that you can get in touch with people to learn more about the program and to kind of begin the journey.

- Okay. - But again, there's a ton of resources available off the get started button on the website for concurrent enrollment. So. - Thank you. I just wanted to be sure that I did not forget to ask you that because I know that after people listen to this podcast, they are going to be very interested in finding out more information.

And I wanna be sure that people know where they can go to get all the information and more than they really thought they needed. So I'm gonna ask you a bunch of questions. Some we have probably already covered, but I want the listeners to have all this information grouped together in the same point in the podcast.

So you mentioned that the college, the university that is providing these dual enrollment or concurrent enrollment credits is Southeastern University. Tell us a little bit about Southeastern University. What are their credentials? Is this, I mean, I know that CC would not partner with an organization that wasn't top-notch, but tell parents something about SEU.

- Yeah, so I think the fun thing to talk about when it comes to college credit, families always ask me, I was on a call with 14 families, I mean, just two days ago on my CC plus office hours, which happens every month. That's on the registration guide as well for families that wanna be on a video call with me.

So the partnership with Southeastern University is pretty awesome because SEU has been very diligent at kind of paying to Caesar what is Caesar's. Maybe that's a good way to think about it. In the way that they are accredited through a regional accreditation body, which is the highest accreditation body in the college environment.

It's kind of the status quo. If you're gonna be even a state school, they're all accredited through these institutions. SEU is a level six regionally accredited school, which means essentially that they have programs through PhDs that are all accredited by these regional accreditation institutions. And so the credit from SEU is as legit a college credit as you can find anywhere, I guess is the kind of takeaway.

- Yes, good, because frankly, that is the kind of question that I get too. Well, this concurrent enrollment option sounds really good, but how can I be sure that these credits my student earns are gonna transfer to the four-year college of their choice? What if it turns out not to be Southeastern University?

Are all these colleges my kid is interested in gonna take these credits? And so that sets our minds at rest, that level six accreditation is awesome, awesome. - Yeah, and I can give your listeners one key tidbit as well regarding the transferring process. So every university has what I call the "keeper of the credits." And this role is titled registrar.

Usually if you contact the college, you can choose to be funneled to their registrar's office. And with the resources that we provide either through our customer service email, ccplus@classicalconversations.com, or the course descriptions that you can pull off of the student information portal, usually families have enough information if they know the school that they're looking at to get in touch with the registrar, to show them the brief descriptions or syllabi of our courses, and request a transfer evaluation before completing the course.

So there's options for families to go ahead and do the legwork with the university. But once that legwork is done, there's a precedent set. So all of the courses that CC+ students have gone and gone ahead and transferred credits into, all of those courses will now have a gateway or a pathway for future CC+ students to be confirmed in their transfer credit.

So that's really important, and that's been going on now for about five years. So that's really good. - Well, that's awesome. That means that students who are entering the program now and hoping to go forth have had people already break the barrier and pave the road for them, a little bit.

That's awesome, Daniel. Thank you. That is very encouraging. Okay, so now as a parent, I'm thinking, well, this sounds awesome. Let us sign up right now. Tell, who can participate in this concurrent enrollment program? How old does my student have to be? What level of challenge? Why can't they participate as early as I want them to talk about that?

- Sure. So we try to strike a fine line. We have some potential programs in the works that are gonna be oriented toward prep for CC+. If families are interested in that, I'll be working on that a little bit more over the next probably couple of years. But right now, the program starts in challenge two, and we have the fewest offerings available in challenge two just to make sure that the family doesn't get too distracted by the CC+ coursework.

But challenge two, three, and four students can all participate in the concurrent enrollment program. - Good, good. And so what are some of the signs that a student would be a good fit or that CC+ would be a good fit for my student? - Yes, I remember when I discovered this after working with the program for a little while.

The only students that ever have trouble really with the CC+ program are students that are not used to being very administratively sharp. So I would say if you have a student that keeps a calendar and they check their email on a regular basis and are diligent and tenacious communicators over the plane of the internet, then you're going to have a student that can be very successful inside of CC+.

It's really just a case usually of missing an email from a professor or closing a browser too fast when you thought you uploaded an assignment that gets students in trouble. - Okay, so they have to keep a careful watch on the interface. It's not the same thing as saying, "Well, I handed it in." You actually have to be sure that you clicked the button to upload your assignment.

- And this is a skill set now that's actually universal across the world of college education, which makes it more important. Like even if you're in person on campus, you're still going to be uploading an assignment on a platform like Canvas, like Brightspace, like Blackboard, like even the in-person schools now are using these LMSs, Learning Management Systems.

You're not handing a piece of paper into a professor anymore in most cases. - You're signing off on a learning module online. Yeah. - Exactly. - So, okay, let me ask you this. What help do you guys provide to families and students? Because I know, now my girls are older, so they're done with college, but I remember when they went to college and they started talking about these, you know, Canvas and all these billboards and all these learning platforms, and I was like, "I'm sorry, I cannot help you with that.

"I do not understand." I mean, I used to turn my paper in in the professor's office if I didn't give it to him in class. So do you guys provide some help to students and families who are learning that system? - Yes, absolutely. So we have our, I mean, that's a majority of our customer service is oriented in that direction.

And I mean, that's what I do. That's what our counselors do. That's, everyone does a little bit of helping students figure out what that process looks like to exist in this course shell. - That's awesome. - Yeah, that's a big part of the skills that we're developing in the CC+ program.

And so most of our team is oriented at helping students navigate that, but really trying to teach them how to fish instead of giving them the fish. You know, there's really an emphasis on this continuation of lifelong learning and of learning the skills of learning just in a different domain.

So that's the bit. There's helps on the student information portal for navigating these portals or navigating these course shells. And there's also, there are videos inside this learning management system as well that are oriented toward teaching the student how to navigate. So- - That's awesome. That's awesome. Good, because I just, I appreciate you offering us reassurance that there are resources to help us.

This is gonna be new information to a lot of families. And so I want them to know that there is support out there to help them learn as they go how to do this. Okay, so what subjects, what courses are offered in concurrent enrollment? And just, you can just, I mean, you don't have to name all of the courses, Daniel, but like, are they literature courses?

Are they history courses? Are they math courses? What subjects or strands have CC+ connections? - Yeah, that's a good question. I wanna say almost all of them. - Wow. - Whereas I know in challenge two, we have Latin, we have Western cultural history, we have college algebra, we have biology, and we have English composition.

So that's what, five out of the six strands? - Wow, yeah. - And that pattern is essentially repeated for all of the challenge programs. I believe that the only one, one of the only ones that we do not have a CC+ concurrent enrollment class for is physics at this point.

- Gotcha. - But that's because I don't think that Southeastern University actually has a physics class. - Okay, so maybe we'll help them grow into a new direction. - Maybe so. - You never know. So how many CC+ credits could my student pursue each semester? And maybe even a better question is, how many do you guys counsel them to do per semester?

- Right. So it depends on what your aim is. The world is becoming increasingly, let's say modular in the sense that students and parents kind of expect things to be tailored to their own experience. - Yes. - And so one of the things that we have done with the CC+ program is set it up to where in concurrent enrollment, you can choose kind of two pathways.

- Okay. - The first one is kind of a la carte picking of one to two courses per semester of your challenge journey and ending up with about, I don't know, maybe almost two semesters of college done by the time you finish the challenge program. - Yeah. - So you save yourself a year of college and then you move along and do whatever it is that you're going to do next.

Or you can choose, and this is for students that really feel administratively comfortable and are really confident in their ability to deal with the LMS systems. You can choose to pursue an associate's degree from between the timespan of challenge two to challenge four and graduate challenge four with an associate's degree.

- Wow. - If you wanna do that, that ends up being about 60 college credit hours, which comes roughly almost to a full load in regards to classical conversations plus courses. You need to talk to one of our counselors before you do that, just so that we can make sure that you're set up, you're moving along the right path and that you will indeed graduate with an associate's degree.

- That is so interesting. And I know parents, you might just be thinking, but I have 10 questions about this. We can't actually cover that in a 50 minute podcast. So the website is your friend. Like Daniel said, there's way more information there than you probably will want to chew up in one mouthful.

So you can find more answers and deeper answers to some of these questions on the website. So Daniel, I know we're starting to run out of time, but I wanna ask, what are the courses like for students? Is it a lot of extra work? Are there additional lectures or workshops or sessions to attend?

What is it like to do a course? - Yeah, so one of the primary features is the time saving component. And that means that the classes function asynchronously. And so there is no like designated meeting class time, even in online chat rooms or anything like that. It's the community day comprises the entirety of the quote unquote class time of the course.

And so families can look at the course descriptions obviously to get more detailed information. But one thing I can say is every CC+ course has you do less work than what's in the challenge guide. - Wow. - Which is pretty important. Like, so the assignments are gonna be kind of picked and chosen from the suite of assignments in the challenge guide that suit the particular course that the student is trying to take.

So like composition one will have six essays over the course of a semester. The students are gonna write probably more than six essays over the fall semester of challenge two. If it's anything like when I did challenge two, I think we wrote like 21 essays over the course of that.

- Oh yeah, in those days you did. - Yeah, and so, and I'm sure that the writing is still, there's still more than we choose in the CC+ courses. And so that should encourage families that the content, the material, and the challenge guide is abundant. And we've actually tailored things a little bit to suit the particular courses that we're accomplishing with SEU.

- Good, that, man, that sounds amazing that my student could get a good education, a good classical education, and they could do this concurrent enrollment. And we probably wouldn't die because it's not so much more work. That's awesome. That's very awesome. So let me ask you this, how would people get registered for this fall or is it too late for this fall?

I'm guessing not. - No, it's not too late for this fall. The first step would be to go on and apply. And so that again is accessible from the get started button on the concurrent enrollment page on our website. After you apply, you don't need test scores. You don't need anything like that.

We have this relationship with SEU that allows for what we call directed mission. And so this is becoming a trend in the higher education world. Basically, it means that if you're a CC student, you get automatically accepted into Southeastern University. And so you can apply. The acceptance process should take somewhere between two and 48 hours for your student to get an email.

Then they log on to their student portal and then just like click everything, read everything, get comfortable in this new ocean of a college system, and then watch some of the tutorial videos to get signed up. - Wow, that is awesome. That is so awesome. What's the cost, Daniel?

What's the cost for CC Plus, the concurrent enrollment? - Yes, so the cost for the concurrent enrollment program is $167 per credit hour, or roughly $500 per course that you add on. And so if you think about it, most of the time students will take one to two courses, and this is roughly the same as paying for challenge, is the two course cost to do a Classical Conversations Plus program.

Families and students, because we've got the payment system going through Southeastern University now, can try to apply scholarships or grants that they have. Usually those don't apply for a quote-unquote dual enrollment phase of education. I would definitely pay for the undergraduate. Or they could also use something like a 529 plan to pay for those courses as well.

So there's a myriad of options now that our payment system is a little more integrated. - That's cool. Are there any scholarships for concurrent enrollment programs? - Not for concurrent enrollment programs too much at the moment. There are certain grants that can apply for the student that's still in high school applying funds to a dual enrollment or concurrent enrollment program.

Those are few and far between, and usually tend to be associated with, let's say like there's different, I know that there was one that I encountered that had something to do with being like a indigenous Native American. - Okay, okay, yeah. - So something like that, but they tend to be few and far between.

- And very narrow in focus, and very narrow in participation, yeah. - Right, so some of those, I would steer away from the ESAs. They're available in Florida that cause you to have to shut down your homeschool to receive funds to then be able to pay for alternate modes of high school education.

I was talking with someone on the phone about that the other day. So really not too much for the concurrent enrollment, but when you get into the undergraduate, the world of scholarships really does open up quite a bit. - Gotcha, gotcha. This has been so awesome. You have shared some really good information.

I think families are gonna be ready. Some people to act on it probably this fall. Some people may file this and be working toward a concurrent enrollment plan for their challenge student once they hit challenge two. Daniel, thank you so much for sharing your insights. Let me ask you one last thing.

To you, what is the best thing about CC+? What's the main reason to check it out? - I think the main reason to check it out is it really has to do with preserving the attention of your student. I find that we know that the curriculum that we're pursuing and the way we're pursuing it in the Classical Conversations classrooms is oriented toward what is John Milton says, "Something like the goal of education "is to correct the folly of our first parents." And that's the attitude that we try to preserve inside the space of the classroom.

And that's the attitude that I feel like gets a little bit lost when we start paying attention to the secondary things instead of the one thing. - Yeah. - So preservation of attention is, in my mind, that's kind of a motivation for why I do what I do. - Wow, that's awesome.

That is awesome. I appreciate these insights. You've given us a lot of good things to think about. A couple of good things to read and a website that can fill in all the chinks you and I might have left open. Thank you, Daniel. I appreciate that. Parents, if you are eager to find out more about what Daniel shared with us today, don't forget you need to go to ccplus.com and click the Get Started button and you will find a wealth of information there that can fill in the gaps for you and for your family.

And parents, if you are feeling a gap in yourself as a classical educator, I want to remind you of a great program that can help you fill those gaps, the classical learning cohort. You know, at CC, we believe that education is the responsibility of the family with support from fellow believers.

So if you are looking to grow in confidence and competence with these classical tools of learning, the classical learning cohort can meet your need. They meet regularly online to practice the tools of learning. It's through discussion and some presentations and through some assessment. If you are interested in pursuing this for yourself, join the conversation at classicalconversations.com/cohort.

All right. I am so glad, Daniel, that you joined us today and I'm already looking forward to talking to you again in the fall about writing. - That sounds awesome. Thanks for having me on, Lisa. - Thanks. All right, parents, go and enjoy a summer day with your kids and I will see you next week.

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