I don't think you have to have a child in the system to be invested or involved in it improving education has interested me since before I even had children. Most community based giving I am involved in doesn't impact me directly actually, I would think most people are similar in that sense. And unschooling gives me a lot of free time to do so! If it is so costly for the Government for families to choose unschooling, well money talks right and maybe more opting out will be motivate the Government to entice them back? Who really knows, probably it would just lead them to making it illegal lol. It isn't black and white, some of my reservations about choosing this lifestyle was how selfish it felt towards society. And I can't lie it makes me happy, I enjoy it immensely, I get as much out of it as my children definitely. But I tend to think people who are happy and secure are more able to invest outwardly too and that is something I try to do as much as possible.

I don't know that unschooling (or home educating) attracts a limited financial demographic? Maybe there is research about this but I definitely wouldn't imagine it being well off people mostly, maybe more upper lower and bottom middle would be my guess but I'm not acutely aware of others finances. There are obviously costs to educate at home but not as much as you'd think and it can be customized to your situation and change as that does - more when you have more, less when you have less - because you control the amount invested. Our co-op organises a lot of things for free and low cost from excursions to experiences to camps, library for free books, thrift shops and eBay and buy swap sell groups for all sorts of resources, buying art supplies with others in bulk and splitting or having a communal pool of things to rotate between families, rocks and sticks and mud are the best toys, recycled goods and tip shops, places like reverse garbage. Art gallary, the general museum and botanical gardens are all free and there are a lot of free or low cost community events (cultural and such). My Facebook event feed is always full, I could do something cheap and interesting everyday for our kids outside the home if we wanted because there are home educating groups all over our city all organizing things. There is a lot of places you can save money too by not having a commitment to school such as food - having a family lunch is much cheaper for us then having to pack lunches for some and make it for others and all of that and we have more time to grow food and to cook food which helps out. (And maybe there is some sort of long term health savings for the Government having a family with more time to invest emotionally, to invest on keeping active and cooking healthy and being less stressed? That would be an interesting study because I think we should all be working a bit less). I do think it is more affordable than it seems.

Luna - I do know personally one person who is part time schooling, her daughter and my eldest were in kindy together. It is really difficult and was definitely quite the fight to organise, I'm not sure many would choose to maintain that situation for long because it is quite stressful and unfortunately I think ends up kind of the worst of both worlds.

Have been a bit busy the last few days, we decided it was time to dedicate an entire room to artistic pursuits so been organising that. Here it is if anyone is interested to see it