Should You Pay for a Permaculture Design Course?

I agree — these are really good questions! This is one of the reasons I chose to take my PDC through a private college, as part of a broader, year-long curriculum, instead of at somebody’s farm or homestead over the course of two or three weeks. Granted, I’m paying college-level tuition and fees, but it feels a lot less “janky” than going out to somebody’s place and doing their work for them, basically paying to be somebody’s “unpaid intern” for a weekend.

But! I think it depends, too, on who is doing the teaching and what you’re learning. I hear very positive things about the PDC offered by the Bullocks, for example. And, you also can’t argue that people should teach their hard-learned skills for “free,” either.

I think ideally it would be cool to have something like a “guild system,” but modified to recognize fair labor practices. Like a “work study.” So, for instance, if you were an “apprentice,” you might pay a certain amount up front for the class, but the labor you performed would be compensated as an offset for the ‘tuition.’