In the spring of 2019 I dropped almost $1500 for School of PE’s review course for the Civil PE exam after finding out I had failed the PE exam on my first attempt. It felt like a lot of money at first, but then I realized I was making a smart investment in myself and my future.
It’s paid for itself 10x over because of how much sooner I passed the PE exam. But more on that later. Let’s get right into answering your question of how much the School of PE costs. Before we begin just note that these are for the Civil PE and FE exam review courses but other disciplines are similarly priced. Also, this is as of early 2022 so these prices may change.
There are three options to purchase the school of PE’s PE review courses. OnDemand costs $1390, $1590, or $1690 for 4, 6, or 12 months respectively. Live Online is $1490. The package of both in one is regularly $1690 and $1390 with an early bird discount. All include lectures, notes, and more.
We’ll get into the details in a moment. For now, here is a handy table that shows the options, cost, and a brief overview of what each includes:
School of PE Course Prices – PE Civil Exam
| Course Option | Cost | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| OnDemand 4/6/12 Months | $1390/$1590/$1690 | 96 hours of ondemand lecture videos, notes, workshop problems & solutions, personalized study plan, practice portal pro |
| Live Online | $1490 | 96 hours of live online lecture videos, notes, workshop problems & solutions, practice portal pro |
| Ondemand & Live Online Bundle | $1690 | 96 hours of live online lecture videos and ondemand videos, notes, workshop problems & solutions, practice portal pro, personalized study plan |
| Onsite | $1390 early bird discount, $1690 regular price | In-person classes, access to lecture videos of your live classes, refresher notes, workshop problems & solutions, practice portal pro |
If you want to see these options for yourself on School of PE’s website, click here. You can also see financing options, review what’s included in the course, and get a free trial to see what it’s like! The free trial doesn’t do it justice though, so if you do sign up for that keep this in mind.
And if you’re curious to know more about why I’m so quick to recommend this course, you can see my in-depth review of School of PE at this link.
The other option that I didn’t include in the table above is the Practice Portal Pro. It’s not a full course but rather one of the best sources of practice problems that I know of. For $390 you get 6-month access to hundreds of questions including a test simulator, quiz generator, and an assessment quiz to show you where you’re at in different topics. Click here to learn more about Practice Portal Pro.
For School of PE’s FE review courses, the prices are similar to but a bit cheaper and there aren’t as many options. Here’s a table of what you have available for FE review courses from School of PE:
School of PE Course Prices – FE Civil Exam
| Course Option | Cost | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| OnDemand | $1090 | 87+ hours of ondemand lecture videos, notes, workshop problems & solutions, personalized study plan, practice portal pro |
| Live Online | $1390 with a $100 discount for registering early and an additional $200 discount for the first 15 students who register | 87+ hours of live online lecture videos, notes, workshop problems & solutions, practice portal pro |
Again I want to remind you that these prices are for the Civil PE exam only but other disciplines are similar. Visit School of PE’s website to check out the cost for your specific discipline.
What You Get For the Price
There are a lot of little details of what’s included when you purchase a School of PE review course but that’s not what really matters. What you really get out of School of PE is the confidence that you’ll pass the PE exam and significantly higher chances that you’ll pass.
Just take a look at my post on School of PE’s pass rates and you’ll see. You go from a 60-70% chance of passing all the way up to around 90%!
But the thing that really made it worth it for me was how awesome it felt to be 100% prepared for the PE exam when I took it after I had been through School of PE.
The morning portion of the PE felt extremely easy. There wasn’t a single problem that I felt unprepared for. I finished early but of course, went back through to check my work on the more difficult problems.
And although the afternoon depth section of the PE was still difficult, it wasn’t anywhere near as difficult or stressful as the first time I took the PE. I knew how to solve almost every problem and was far more certain that my work and my answers were correct.
The price of the School of PE and the features aren’t as important as the confidence it gives you when taking the exam. You do want to know what you’re getting into though, so here are the three main features of School of PE that you’ll use most often:
- Lecture Videos. These are amazing. The instructions know what they’re doing and make it all make complete sense.
- Refresher Notes. This includes the notes for the lectures which you can print out and use to follow along while watching. I highly recommend you do that because it’s one of the best ways to get as much as you can out of School of PE.
- Practice Problems. Throughout each lecture, instructors will include many practice problems. There is also a section for each discipline that is just for practice problems and you get dozens of them for each. It’s hundreds of problems to get you completely prepared for test day. They were the most similar to what I actually saw on the PE exam of any review material I’d used.
If you want to see more of the details of what’s included when you purchase School of PE, click here.
Making it Easier to Pay
The idea of dropping $1500 on a course to help you pass the PE exam is probably the biggest hurdle you’re trying to overcome right now. You know that you want to pass the PE exam, and you’ll almost certainly make it happen after purchasing School of PE. But the high price is just tough to justify sometimes.
I want to help make it easier by showing you a couple of options that can ease the burden slightly.
The first is the financing plans. Here’s how to see the financing options available to you:
- Head to the School of PE website by clicking here.
- Select your review course either from the dropdown or the main page.
- Click on “Learn More” within the area for the discipline of the PE that you want to take.
- On the left panel select either “Onsite Schedule,” “Live Online Schedule” or “Ondemand Course.”
- You’ll see the price for different options and then underneath the price you’ll see something like “Starting at $126/mo with Affirm. Learn more.” Click on “Learn More” to see the financing plans.
Here’s a link to what the page looks like for one of the Civil PE disciplines.
This turns a big $1500 payment into monthly payments that are very reasonable. The interest payments don’t look too bad from what I can see either. Plus, if you end up getting your PE sooner because of it, then it’ll more than pay for itself!
The other option is to have your employer pay for School of PE. It’s in your firm’s best interest for you to get licensed, so it’s definitely worth asking. It’s also a business expense, which means they don’t have to pay taxes on it!
And although I don’t love this option, you could always ask to borrow the money from a friend or family member. Everybody’s got that one rich uncle, right? And even if they won’t pay for all of it maybe they’ll help you out with part of it!
The last thing I want to mention about paying for School of PE is their free repeat guarantee. If you take School of PE’s course, participate in all the lectures legitimately trying to pass, and then fail the PE exam, you get to retake the course completely free! You can check out the details of it right here.
Not only do you have super high chances (~90%) of passing on your first try with School of PE, you also get to go through the course again if you don’t pass. In other words, it’s really difficult to lose here, either way you’re almost certainly going to get your money’s worth!
Wrapping Up
School of PE is expensive but 100% worth it because of the confidence it gives you when taking the PE exam. I wouldn’t have passed the PE exam without it.
If I hadn’t taken School of PE when I did I would have had to wait a lot longer to get my PE license, which would have cost me a lot of money. Because of that, School of PE’s review course very quickly pays for itself and I highly recommend it.