My oldest daughter took AP homeschool classes during 9th and 10th grades and finished up through a local charter school that has an early college program, so we've experienced both options. I have to say that in general the AP courses/exams were more time intensive then the actual college classes and they were quite spendy as we ultimately had to pay for the AP class, test, transcripts, and a fee to have the college accept the credit; seriously, it was more expensive than just taking those darn classes at the local community college. I do believe that some colleges look more favorably at AP credit though.
The early college program was basically free, so in that sense, it was great. However, going to community college, especially in an urban setting, has it's own distractions and my daughter was too immature to care about attending classes, getting good grades, etc. In hindsight I wish we wouldn't have placed her in an adult learning environment before she was more mature. We've seen some kids really surprise us and thrive in the early college environment and others fail miserably. Like most opportunities, there are pros and cons.
Have you checked with all your local colleges, many times they have early admittance type programs that aren't free, but set up for high achieving high school age kids.
