£2800 for a college biology trip!

[dinnafash]

Is this cost usual for college trips?
Dd started her A levels last week and has come home today with information about a trip to Honduras for £2800!
We've already heard about another one that costs £1500.
I'm absolutely gobsmacked that they think it's acceptable to offer trips at that cost to students. Surely there are very few families who can afford such things. That's more than we've ever spent on a holiday for the 4 of us.
Dd informs me they've been told they will get a qualification with this and UCAS points too. So once again poorer families are being penalised and not being given the full opportunities that richer students will have.

That was to MissSusan ^

here

Our secondary school offer a trip for year 12 pupils (ds1 was in year 12 last year) to go to Iceland. Ds1 would have loved to have gone but we couldn't afford it just knowing the initial payment was £800 to secure a place. (He does have savings we offered access to but he wanted to save those for later!)

The final cost was worked out after the final number of students going was known as the school had a deal to get it cheaper the more people went. We never found out the full price, but it was expected to be well over £2,000. Thankfully it wasn't compulsory, and he wasn't as fussed about going when he remembered penguins don't live in Iceland, they are southern hemisphere birds, and that is what he is interested in going to see (Has aspergers and is obsessed with penguins.)

In can't believe people were committing to a trip for their children without knowing the full cost either.

Plus, he would have needed enough warm, suitable clothes and footwear for Iceland in the snow, can't begin to imagine how much that would have set us back.

The orphanage thing is absolutely wrong and something well highlighted by JK Rowling’s charity Lumos.

However, your original point was about taking jobs away from skill labour. Have you got any evidence for that? As far as I know the projects are often raising money to help refurbish and equip school buildings or hospitals. So providing paints, books, pens and having a go at a bit of teaching etc. Or working in nature reserves to help count turtle hatchlings. Not serious building works.

this screams world challenge,expensive holiday ( because of the cost of supervising kids). padi can be done cheaper.

shipping in unskilled privileged kids (because in the scheme of things all british kids are privileged, they have access to drinkable water, free education and toilets) is no use at all to these communities. Volunteer in the uk, please.

There is a v popular California trip for GCSE at one of our local state schools @ £2k.

World Challenge is a rip-off and just uses a week of volunteer activities as cover for a very expensive package trip.

Try Choice Humanitarian - virtually all of the funding goes to the local country, and it is much less expensive.

You can also have a look at VolunteerHQ.com if you prefer an Environmental Conservation option.