What it costs
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly | $20.00 per month | Renews monthly until you cancel |
| Annual | $200.00 per year | Two months’ saving; renews annually until you cancel |
There is no joining fee, no application fee, no examination fee payable to us, and no fee at any stage of a masterpiece review. If a page anywhere on this site ever asks you for money beyond the figures above, it is a mistake and we would like to know about it.
What a membership includes
- The full course of work: every liberal art we have built, and every one we build while you are a member.
- A rank, and a mentor of longer standing named in the register as yours.
- Access to a circle if you want one, and no obligation to join one if you do not.
- Tutoring and written feedback on your work.
- Preparation for outside examinations, with the honest arithmetic on whether you are ready to sit one.
What it does not include
The cost of outside examinations, which you pay to the organisation administering them, not to us. The GED® test is $39 a subject and $156 for all four in Kansas. CLEP® and DSST® examinations are priced by College Board and Prometric respectively.
Cancelling
You can cancel online, in one click, from your account, at any time, without telephoning anybody and without being asked why. Cancelling stops the next payment. It does not remove your rank, your marks, or your entry in the register, because nothing you have earned here is ever taken back.
If you rejoin later, you resume where you left off. Your payment count continues rather than restarting.
Renewal terms
Both plans renew automatically until cancelled. Before your first payment we show you the price, the billing frequency, and the cancellation method, and we ask you to agree to those renewal terms separately from anything else. After you join, we email you an acknowledgement containing the same terms and a direct cancellation link, so you always have it in writing.
On the annual plan we email a reminder before each renewal. We give advance notice before any price change. Full detail is in the Terms of Membership.
Why twenty dollars
In 1883 the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle asked its members for roughly eight dollars a year, books included, and about half a million Americans took them up on it. Adjusted into current money that is almost exactly twenty dollars a month.
We are not being clever. Twenty dollars is what a serious course of adult study has cost, in real terms, for a hundred and forty years. What changed is that we can now teach one member or ten thousand for close to the same money, so we do not have to charge you for a building.