BYU Independent Study

BYU Independent Study is the distance-education arm of Brigham Young University, operating continuously since 1921 and offering over four hundred accredited courses to middle and high school students across all fifty states and more than a hundred countries. It is the most-used Latter-day Saint-affiliated online course provider in the country, and — because of its pricing, transferability, and scale — one of the most-used homeschool a-la-carte providers of any affiliation.

Last updated: 2026-04-24 · Every Homeschool Editorial Team

At a glance

Method	Online academy / traditional / self-paced
Worldview	LDS (operated by Brigham Young University; predominantly LDS student body; academic content delivered without gospel framing in most courses)
Grades	6-12 (plus university-level courses for advanced students)
Formats	Digital, video course, self-paced (no live class)
Cost tier	Standard (per-course pricing comparable to community-college rates)
Parent intensity	1
ESA-common	Yes in most marketplaces; accepted on most homeschool ESAs
Accredited	Yes (Cognia, WASC, MSA CESS, NCAA, NWCCU)
Established	1921
Website	is.byu.edu

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	4	Standard courses are solid college-prep; AP and honors tracks carry weight
Ease of teaching	5	Self-paced with automated grading and teacher feedback; parent is supervisor only
Content quality	4	A large catalog means variation; standard and AP courses are well-built
Flexibility	5	Start any day, twelve months to complete, fully a-la-carte
Value for money	5	$215-$319 per semester course is meaningfully below competitors
Worldview scope	4	Academic content delivered without explicit LDS framing; the institution is LDS
Visual/design	4	Modern LMS with video, guided notes, and multimedia
Support resources	5	148 credentialed instructors, free tutoring on select courses, student success center

Who the publisher is

BYU Independent Study operates within BYU Continuing Education at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. The program traces its origin to 1921, which makes it one of the oldest continuously operating distance-education programs in the United States. It has expanded from its initial correspondence-course format through radio, mail, early online, and modern web-based delivery across more than a century of iteration. The program today offers 470+ accredited courses to more than two million cumulative enrollments across 153 countries, staffed by 148 credentialed instructors with PhD and master's degrees.

The program is a nonprofit arm of BYU, which is itself owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. BYU's institutional identity is explicitly LDS: the university's honor code, student body, faculty, and undergraduate curriculum are framed within the Church's standards. BYU Independent Study inherits the parent institution's accreditation and ownership but operates the high school and middle school courses as standard college-preparatory academic work — most secondary courses are delivered without explicit gospel framing, though they are created by an LDS-affiliated institution and LDS course developers.

The program holds an unusual stack of accreditations. Per the BYU Independent Study site, the program is accredited by Cognia, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), the Middle States Association Commissions on Elementary and Secondary Schools (MSA CESS), NCAA (for student-athlete eligibility), and the Northwestern Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU). This breadth is the practical reason the program is used widely outside LDS households: courses transfer almost universally into US public, private, charter, and homeschool transcripts.

Per Jorge Cardenas's editorial ruling of 2026-04-20, Every Homeschool classifies BYU Independent Study in the taxonomy as lds, not as any variant of Christian. The ownership and institutional affiliation are Latter-day Saint, even though the secondary course content is largely academic and accepted across denominational and secular homeschool populations. The classification describes who operates the program, not who uses it.

The core pedagogy

BYU Independent Study is self-paced distance education in the American correspondence-course tradition, modernized into a web-based LMS. A student enrolls in a course, receives access to the full course materials immediately, and has up to twelve months to complete the course at their own pace. Courses are delivered through a combination of reading, video lessons, interactive exercises, and instructor-graded assignments. Students submit work through the LMS; instructors return feedback typically within a few business days; the student proceeds when ready. There are no live classes, no fixed schedules, no cohort peers.

The high school catalog is organized into 220+ high school courses covering core subjects (English, math through calculus, sciences through physics, world history, US history, government), world languages (Spanish, French, German, Latin, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian), AP courses, CTE electives, and a homeschool-specific track that supports families running the full program. 100+ courses are NCAA-approved, which matters for student-athletes, and 150+ are UC-approved, which matters for California college admissions. The middle school catalog is smaller but covers standard 6-8 core subjects.

Signature mechanics: (1) Twelve months to complete. A student can enroll in August and finish in May, or enroll in January and finish in December. A struggling student can take longer; an accelerated student can finish faster. This is a dramatically different pacing model from cohort-based online schools. (2) Per-course enrollment with no full-time tuition. Students enroll in the courses they want, pay per course, and receive a transcript reflecting completed courses. There is no flat-fee full-time tuition and no forced package. (3) Free tutoring on select courses. Free tutoring is available on certain courses, including world languages, through the Student Success Center — unusual for a course provider at this price point. (4) Transcripts that transfer. Because of the multiple accreditations, BYU Independent Study credits are accepted at most US high schools, colleges, and NCAA-tracked programs without additional verification.

A day in the life

A homeschool tenth-grader taking two courses through BYU Independent Study alongside the rest of their homeschool work typically sets aside one hour a day per course, four or five days a week. On a Tuesday morning the student logs into the LMS, opens the current lesson in Algebra II (say, Week 7: Quadratic Functions), reads the lesson text and watches the 15-minute instructional video, works through the practice problems embedded in the lesson, and submits the week's assignment. The student then moves to the second course — say, AP US History — and reads the week's assigned chapter, takes notes using the provided guided-note template, and drafts the response to the week's short-essay prompt for submission later in the week. The parent's role is minimal: confirm the student is keeping pace, review returned teacher feedback, and manage the enrollment paperwork.

A student using BYU Independent Study as their primary high school platform — a less common but supported use — might enroll in six courses per year and run a full academic schedule through the program. In this pattern the student's day looks more like the homeschool version of independent college-prep study: several hours across multiple subjects, self-scheduled, with teacher feedback replacing in-person instruction. Some of this profile of student enrolls in a live tutor or academic coach to provide weekly accountability; others do not.

What they do exceptionally well

Pricing relative to accreditation stack. Standard semester courses at $215 per 0.5 credit and specialty courses at $319 per 0.5 credit are substantially below typical accredited online private school tuition. A full year of single-course enrollment (one credit, two semesters) runs approximately $430-$638 depending on course tier, which compares favorably to $800-$1,200 per year-long course at The Potter's School or to per-credit pricing at Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth equivalents.

The course catalog is wide. 470+ accredited courses across high school, middle school, and university levels means a homeschool family can find an AP or honors course in subjects that smaller providers simply do not offer. Korean. Russian. Advanced Computer Science. Agriculture. Real-world welding and agriculture CTE. Multiple AP sciences. This catalog breadth is one of the program's most durable advantages.

Self-paced pacing genuinely flexible. A student can stop for two weeks during a family move, drop back in, and still complete within the twelve-month window. A student who wants to finish a semester course in six weeks to clear space for another subject can. Families running asynchronous schedules for any reason — traveling, twice-exceptional learners, accelerated students, struggling students — find BYU Independent Study's pacing accommodating.

Transcripts transfer without drama. The program's accreditation stack, plus its hundred-plus-year history, plus the university affiliation, mean that a BYU Independent Study course completed by a homeschool student transfers into almost any subsequent academic context without question. For families building college-prep transcripts, this is meaningful weight.

What they do poorly

No live teacher presence. This is inherent in the self-paced model but is still a limitation. Students who learn best through live discussion, immediate question-and-answer, or peer conversation will find BYU Independent Study solitary. The Student Success Center's free tutoring helps on select subjects but does not replicate a live class.

Course quality varies across a large catalog. The standard and AP courses in the main high school sequence are well-built and well-maintained; the quality of some specialty, CTE, and less-enrolled courses varies more. Families selecting a specific course should check reviews or sample the course before committing. This is a common feature of very large course catalogs and not unique to BYU.

Subject sequencing is the family's responsibility. Because enrollment is per-course and there is no flat-fee full-time program, the family builds the student's high school course sequence themselves. Students and parents who expect the provider to manage the transcript across four years — course selection, graduation requirements, AP planning, college-prep sequencing — need either a separate academic advisor or to do this work themselves. BYU Independent Study offers the courses; it does not run the student's high school plan.

LDS institutional affiliation occasionally surfaces. Course content in most subjects is academically standard, but some literature selections, historical framing, and course examples reflect BYU's institutional culture. Non-LDS families using the program will notice this occasionally — a passage from a Book of Mormon-adjacent source used as a writing prompt, a reference to the Church's educational traditions in an institutional statement. This is not pervasive across most courses but is present at the edges.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick BYU Independent Study if: you want a-la-carte enrollment in specific accredited high school courses rather than a full-time online school; you are a homeschool family building a college-prep transcript and want AP and honors courses with recognized accreditation; you are a Latter-day Saint family who values the BYU affiliation; you are budget-conscious and want per-course pricing below typical private-school tuition; you have a student who needs flexible self-paced timing due to travel, asynchrony, or other life structure.

• Skip BYU Independent Study if: you want live-teacher instruction rather than self-paced courses (look at The Potter's School, Wilson Hill Academy, or American Heritage Online High School for live Christian online); you are pursuing a full-time online private school diploma (use American Heritage Online or Liberty University Online Academy); you want a provider with an active parent-teacher-student community; you need a provider that manages the student's transcript and graduation planning end-to-end.

Cost honest assessment

Current pricing per the BYU Independent Study tuition page, effective August 1, 2025 for high school courses, as of April 2026:

High school and middle school:

• Standard courses: $215 per 0.5 semester credit (a year-long 1-credit course = $430)
• Specialty courses: $319 per 0.5 semester credit ($638 per year-long course)
• Best value courses: $130 per 0.5 semester credit
• Quarter-credit courses: $130 per 0.25 quarter credit

University courses (for advanced students): $256 per credit hour.

Additional fees: Course extension $20, exam retake $15, assignment resubmission $10, withdrawal $30, printed readings packet $21-$35. Transcripts $8 (eTranscript) to $65 (mailed internationally).

Compared to The Potter's School (roughly $850-$1,200 per year-long live course), Wilson Hill Academy (roughly $700-$1,100 per year-long course), and Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (roughly $1,200-$1,800 per semester course), BYU Independent Study is meaningfully cheaper per course. The trade is the self-paced, no-live-class format.

A realistic all-in family budget for a homeschool student taking four BYU Independent Study courses per year (covering, say, math, a world language, an AP course, and an elective) runs approximately $1,100-$1,700 per year depending on course tier selection. For a family running BYU Independent Study as the primary platform for a full six-course year, approximately $1,800-$2,600.

ESA eligibility notes

BYU Independent Study is accepted on most state ESA marketplaces that permit individual online courses. Arizona ESA (via ClassWallet), Utah Fits All, Florida Step Up For Students, and West Virginia Hope Scholarship all reimburse BYU Independent Study course enrollments as of April 2026. Families in Iowa and Arkansas, which apply somewhat narrower rubrics, should confirm vendor status before enrollment. The institutional affiliation with BYU and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not typically trigger worldview-based ESA restrictions, because the secondary-level academic content is delivered in standard college-prep format rather than explicit religious education — but states with conservative religious-curriculum restrictions may scrutinize the affiliation. The program's multi-accreditation stack simplifies most ESA approvals.

Alternatives

• American Heritage Online High School — a family seeking a live-teacher LDS online high school with a diploma program and integrated Seminary, rather than a-la-carte self-paced courses, would choose AHS Online.
• The Potter's School — a family seeking live-teacher online courses from a broad Christian (non-LDS) evangelical provider, with an active community and seminar-style classes, would choose The Potter's School.
• North Dakota Center for Distance Education — a family seeking a-la-carte self-paced online courses from a secular state-operated provider with similar accreditation breadth would choose NDCDE over BYU Independent Study.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed the BYU Independent Study main page, the high school catalog page, the homeschool program page, and the tuition and fees page at indstudy.byu.edu for current pricing as of April 2026. We corroborated the 1921 founding date and accreditation details through the site's public institutional materials. Prices and program details verified April 2026.