Modern States Education Alliance

Modern States is a philanthropically funded nonprofit offering free online preparation courses for CLEP exams, along with free vouchers covering the CLEP exam fee for students who complete a course and pass a practice test. It is not a homeschool curriculum in the conventional sense. It is a way for a homeschooled junior or senior to earn genuine college credit at zero out-of-pocket cost.

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

At a glance

Method	Subject-specialist, online academy, self-paced video and reading
Worldview	Secular
Grades	9-12 typical; capable students can use Modern States earlier
Formats	Digital, video lectures, reading materials, practice tests; exam delivered at third-party CLEP test centers
Cost tier	Free
Parent intensity	2
ESA-common	N/A (the courses are free; CLEP exam vouchers are also covered)
Accredited	Not accredited as a school; CLEP credit is granted by the College Board and accepted by approximately 2,900 colleges
Established	2016
Website	modernstates.org

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	4	Courses are taught by university faculty; CLEP exams measure college-level competency and are accepted as transfer credit
Ease of teaching	5	Fully self-paced; parent involvement limited to scheduling and exam logistics
Content quality	4	Video lectures from real university faculty are high-quality; production values and platform usability are functional rather than polished
Flexibility	5	Any student, any time, any pace; no enrollment, no deadlines, no prerequisites
Value for money	5	Free courses and free exam vouchers; the economic case is essentially unbeatable
Worldview scope	5	Worldview-neutral academic content; usable across any homeschool worldview
Visual/design	3	Platform is functional and dated; not the class of the field in UX
Support resources	3	Limited direct support; the model is self-service and depends on the student's independence

Who the publisher is

Modern States Education Alliance is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 2016 by investor Steven Klinsky. Its explicit mission, branded as Freshman Year for Free, is to offer every American student the opportunity to earn the equivalent of a first year of college credit at zero cost, by providing free preparation courses for College-Level Examination Program (CLEP) exams and by funding the exam fee itself. The CLEP exam fee as of April 2026 is approximately $95 at the College Board, plus a test-center seat fee that typically adds $25-$40; Modern States covers both through the voucher program for students who complete a Modern States course and pass the associated practice test.

The nonprofit is philanthropically funded; it takes no tuition, no subscriptions, no advertising. Its funding comes from the Klinsky Family Foundation and from allied foundations. The organization's own public messaging is straightforward: it exists to reduce the cost of the first year of college, and it targets homeschoolers, public-school students, community-college transfers, and adult learners alike.

Modern States has partnered with universities and university faculty to develop the course content. Video lectures are delivered by real professors, including faculty from Columbia, Purdue, Johns Hopkins, Tulane, and other institutions, and the courses track the College Board's published CLEP exam specifications. As of April 2026, Modern States offers courses for 33 CLEP exams across the humanities, sciences, business, and foreign languages, along with several AP Course Audit-approved AP preparation courses. The course catalog at modernstates.org lists current offerings.

The organization is not a school. It does not issue transcripts. Students who pass a CLEP exam after completing a Modern States course receive the College Board's exam score, which they then submit to their college or university for credit according to that institution's CLEP policy. The College Board's CLEP policy search allows students to verify which exams are accepted for credit at which institutions.

The core pedagogy

A Modern States course is, at its core, a video-plus-reading package designed to cover the content specifications of a CLEP exam. A typical course contains between twenty and fifty short video lectures, usually ten to twenty-five minutes each, delivered by a subject-matter expert, often a university professor recording lectures edited for online delivery. Accompanying the videos are readings, problem sets, quizzes, and sample questions modeled on the CLEP exam.

Three features characterize the pedagogical model:

(1) Self-paced and asynchronous. There are no cohorts, no deadlines, no start dates, no live instruction. A student enrolls in a course, works through the videos and readings at whatever pace suits them, and moves to the practice exam when they believe they are ready. Students can revisit material, skip sections they already know, or work on multiple courses in parallel.

(2) Aligned to the CLEP exam. Each Modern States course tracks the content specifications published by the College Board for the corresponding CLEP exam. A student who completes the course has been exposed to the material that the exam tests. The course is not designed to exceed the exam's scope or to provide general education beyond the exam's specifications, it is exam preparation.

(3) Voucher-gated at completion. To earn the exam voucher (which pays the $95 CLEP fee and up to $40 for the seat fee), a student must complete the Modern States course and pass its internal practice test. This gating mechanism ensures that students request vouchers only after completing the preparation; it also means the course itself is a genuine prerequisite for the free exam, not a nominal step.

The actual CLEP exam is administered at College Board-authorized test centers, typically community colleges, four-year colleges, or approved proctoring centers. The student schedules the exam, takes it in person or at an approved remote testing option, and receives a score immediately for most subjects (essay sections take longer). A passing score, generally 50 on the CLEP's 20-80 scale, though individual colleges may require higher, is submitted to the student's college for credit.

A day in the life

A homeschooled eleventh-grader preparing for the CLEP College Composition exam through Modern States opens the course on a laptop in the mid-morning study block. The day's work is typically a single video lecture (fifteen to twenty-five minutes), the associated reading (ten to thirty pages of primary material and instructor notes), and a set of practice questions (ten to twenty items). The student takes notes, completes the practice work, and moves on.

Across a typical week, the student spends three to five hours on the course, often split across four or five days. Pacing is entirely at the student's discretion. A motivated high-school junior or senior can complete a Modern States course for an introductory-level CLEP. College Composition, American Literature, Introductory Psychology, Principles of Macroeconomics, in six to eight weeks of consistent work. A slower pace, or working around other academic commitments, might stretch a single course to a full semester.

Once the student passes the course's internal practice test, they request the CLEP voucher through the Modern States portal, schedule the CLEP exam at a nearby test center, and take the exam. A parent's role in the process is typically limited to transportation to the test center and, for younger students, handling the exam-center ID and registration paperwork.

What they do exceptionally well

The economic case is extraordinary. A high-school junior or senior who completes five Modern States courses and passes five CLEP exams can enter college with approximately fifteen credit hours, a full semester, of transferable credit, at a total out-of-pocket cost of approximately $0. At a public university charging $400 per credit hour, this represents roughly $6,000 in avoided tuition; at a private college charging $1,500 per credit hour, the figure is closer to $22,000. The program is not exaggerated when it calls itself Freshman Year for Free; for motivated students, it delivers on the promise.

Real university faculty. Modern States' video lecturers are not gig-economy content creators. The courses feature faculty from major research universities. Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Purdue, Tulane, and others, and the lectures are at university level in terms of content density and vocabulary. A student who completes a Modern States course has been exposed to college-level instruction on the subject matter.

Transferability of CLEP credit. Approximately 2,900 colleges and universities accept CLEP credit, including most public four-year institutions and a substantial number of private colleges per the College Board's published list. For homeschoolers planning to attend a state university or community college, CLEP is the single most widely accepted form of transferable exam credit. Students can verify specific institutional policies before investing time in particular exams.

Zero-friction for homeschoolers. Because Modern States operates on a self-paced asynchronous model with no enrollment prerequisites, homeschoolers can use it without enrolling in an online school, submitting transcripts, or qualifying for a particular grade level. A twelve-year-old can take a Modern States course. A sixty-year-old can take a Modern States course. The model does not depend on institutional classification.

What they do poorly

Not a curriculum; does not replace high-school coursework. Modern States prepares a student for a CLEP exam. It does not teach the full scope of a high-school American History course or a high-school English Composition sequence; it teaches the content specifications of the CLEP exam. Families using Modern States as their only source for a given subject may find that the student has learned the exam material but has not encountered the breadth or depth a full high-school course would include. The sensible approach is to use Modern States as a complement to a high-school curriculum, not as a substitute.

Platform UX is functional. The Modern States learning platform is not polished. Video playback works, progress tracking works, and the practice tests work, but the interface is visually dated and occasionally clunky. Students accustomed to Khan Academy, Outschool, or a contemporary learning management system will notice the difference. This has no bearing on the content quality; it affects experience.

Limited student support. Because Modern States is a free service with a small operational footprint, direct student support is limited. There are no office hours, no live tutors, and no forum-based discussion with instructors. Students who struggle with the material are largely on their own or must find tutoring elsewhere. Motivated, self-directed students do well. Students who need interactive support may find the model isolating.

CLEP exam scope ceiling. CLEP exams cover introductory-level college material, roughly first-year general-education courses. Modern States does not prepare students for upper-division college courses, graduate-level material, or specific majors beyond the introductory level. A student completing ten Modern States courses has credit for ten introductory courses; the substance of an engineering degree or a pre-med sequence remains ahead of them.

Test-center access varies. Although Modern States covers the exam fee and seat fee, families still need to find a CLEP test center. In dense urban areas this is trivial; in rural areas, the nearest test center may be an hour or more away. Some test centers also have limited scheduling availability, particularly in the late spring and summer. Families should check test center locations before committing to a specific exam date.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick Modern States if: your student is a motivated, self-directed high-school junior or senior capable of working through college-level video lectures and readings independently; your family is cost-conscious and wants to reduce college tuition before the student enrolls; your student is planning to attend a college that accepts CLEP credit broadly; you want to supplement a regular high-school curriculum with genuine college credit rather than replace it; you are homeschooling and want external credentials that college admissions offices recognize.

• Skip Modern States if: your student is not yet capable of self-directed college-level work and needs a teacher-led course; your student's target college does not accept CLEP credit broadly or restricts it to specific departments (some selective private colleges cap or decline CLEP); you need a full curriculum and do not have a primary high-school program to pair Modern States with; your student struggles with high-stakes proctored exam performance; your student is below the mid-high-school reading level.

Cost honest assessment

Modern States courses are free. CLEP exam vouchers, covering the $95 exam fee and up to $40 for the test-center seat fee, per the College Board's published CLEP fee schedule as of April 2026, are also free, provided the student completes the corresponding Modern States course and passes its internal practice test. A student taking five Modern States courses and passing five CLEP exams, at roughly 3 college credits each, spends approximately $0 out of pocket and gains approximately 15 transferable credit hours.

Compared to any alternative for college credit. AP exams ($98 per exam as of April 2026, typically preceded by a year-long AP course or textbook-and-self-study, with no voucher program), dual-enrollment at a community college ($100-$400 per credit hour depending on the state), or traditional college tuition, Modern States is dramatically less expensive. The closest comparable value is dual enrollment in a state that subsidizes it fully, which varies by state and often comes with residency, transportation, and age restrictions.

The only real cost of Modern States is student time. A course typically takes 30-80 hours of student work; the exam itself is two to four hours. For a family, the all-in cost of pursuing a full Freshman Year for Free (ten CLEP exams, approximately 30 credits) is roughly 400-800 hours of student time spread across eighteen to twenty-four months, and zero dollars.

ESA eligibility notes

Because Modern States courses and CLEP vouchers are free, ESA funding is largely inapplicable at the point of service. Some state ESA programs do permit the use of ESA funds for CLEP exam fees not covered by Modern States vouchers, or for additional exam retakes. States that specifically list College Board exam fees as allowable ESA expenses include Arizona, Florida (depending on program), and West Virginia in certain categories. Families should verify with their specific state ESA program. The courses themselves do not require ESA funding. Because Modern States is a secular nonprofit, ESA restrictions on religious materials do not apply.

Alternatives

• College Board AP Courses and Exams, a family would choose AP over CLEP when their student is aiming for selective private colleges that accept AP scores but restrict CLEP credit, or when the student wants to demonstrate advanced coursework on a transcript rather than exam-based credit.
• Dual enrollment at a community college, a family would choose dual enrollment over Modern States when they want their student to earn college credit through graded coursework rather than through exam-based CLEP credit, particularly when their state subsidizes dual enrollment tuition for high-school students.
• StraighterLine, a family would choose StraighterLine over Modern States when they want full courses with assessments and transcripts rather than exam preparation, and are willing to pay the subscription cost (approximately $99/month plus course fees) in exchange for course-based credit through partner colleges.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed Modern States' course catalog, About page, and voucher program details at modernstates.org in April 2026. We cross-referenced CLEP exam fees, test-center availability, and credit-acceptance policies against the College Board's own CLEP pages. We verified the list of partner faculty and the academic institutions represented in Modern States' video lectures via the organization's course descriptions. Program details, including the free voucher workflow and the internal practice-test gating, verified April 2026.