Please consider applying to be a judge for the 2026 homeschooled voices book award! This is a chance for homeschool alumni to read recently published books with homeschooled characters and decide which ones represent our experiences best. This is not an official book award (at least not yet), and there will not be any financial compensation. It is an opportunity for people who enjoy reading and would like to help raise awareness for representation of homeschoolers in literature.
Homeschooling is an increasingly popular educational choice. According to the Johns Hopkins School of Education, homeschooling is increasing at an average rate of 5.4% per year in the United States. Parents are turning to homeschooling as an alternative to traditional school, something they may hope will provide their children with a superior education and social development. But how much actual evidence is there to support homeschooling? Studies on homeschool outcomes are few and often flawed. The research that does exist gives a messy, incomplete picture of homeschooling, suggesting that there may be benefits in some areas but disadvantages in others.
The Study
In this article I, the author, will discuss a high-quality study on homeschool outcomes titled “Diverse Outcomes for a Diverse Population“. This 2025 report by Albert Cheng and Angela R. Watson was published by the think tank Cardus. The data was taken from the 2023 Cardus Education Survey, which was given to a representative sample of 2,350 U.S. adults by the polling firm Ipsos Public Affairs. About eight percent (181) of these were homeschoolers. Some major strengths of this study are that it allows homeschoolers to be compared with each other, and with a control group of traditionally schooled adults, and that random sampling reduces the likelihood of the results being biased towards a specific type of homeschooler. The authors also controlled for demographic factors besides school type.
How Long Were Respondents Homeschooled?
The authors divide the respondents into short-term (1-2 years), medium-term (3-7 years), and long-term (8-13 years) homeschoolers. Overall, about 36%, 27%, and 36% of participants fell in each group. The most common number of years spent homeschooled was 1 (20%) with an additional 16% percent of respondents spending 2 years homeschooled. The next most common time was 13 years (17%), and in total K-12 homeschoolers were a minority representing less than 1/5 of the homeschool population. Homeschooling temporarily or making it a long-term commitment seemed to both a bit more common for students than splitting their education more evenly between homeschooling and traditional schooling.
Is There a Higher Education Gap?
The short answer is yes, there is a gap, and homeschoolers are at a disadvantage.
The 2023 Cardus Education Survey revealed some uncomfortable disparities between different educational groups. Rates of bachelor’s degree attainment were found to be about 46% for non-homeschoolers, 45% for short-term homeschoolers, 27% for medium-term, and 29% for long-term. On the other hand, the rates of having only a high school diploma were 27%, 36%, 47% and 41% respectively. According to the authors’ analysis medium and long-term homeschoolers were less likely to pursue any kind of higher education, and all homeschoolers were more likely to have nothing above a high school diploma than non-homeschoolers.
The study cannot prove that homeschooling causes these outcomes. However, homeschooling for three or more years is clearly at least correlated with lower pursuit of higher education.
Do Homeschoolers Earn Less?
Unfortunately, the answer is yes, they tend to earn less.
52% of non-homeschooled respondents reported a household income above the U.S. median. Only 41% of short-term, 33% of medium-term, and 35% of long-term homeschoolers could say the same. Unemployment was also worse for homeschoolers, especially the medium-term ones who reported an unemployment rate of 33% compared to 19% for non-homeschoolers.
Why does this gap exist? According to Cheng and Watson it may be partly due to homeschoolers’ attitudes towards life:
“…long-term homeschoolers may value other things in life more than money, which might partially explain their lower educational attainment and income levels. However, long-term homeschoolers also placed more value on hard work, which might be a partial explanation for why their likelihood of employment was similar to that of more highly educated short-term homeschoolers.”
However, this is just a suggestion, and the authors do not offer an explanation for the source of these differing attitudes.
Are Homeschoolers More Content in Life?
They say yes.
Overall long-term homeschoolers scored the highest on gratitude, positivity, satisfaction with life, and close social relationships, and the lowest on depression and anxiety. Of the three groups of homeschoolers medium-term ones tended to score the lowest on these. The authors do not say whether all of the differences between groups were significant, but the findings suggest that homeschooled respondents at least did not report worse mental health than the others. Homeschoolers were also more likely to have volunteered, and to attend religious services regularly.
When it came to marriage and having children, the largest divides existed within the homeschooling community. Sixty-three percent of long-term homeschoolers were married compared to only 34% of medium-term ones. Long-terms had an average of 1.23 children each while medium-terms had .61. This shows that while some homeschoolers were more likely to have formed a family than non-homeschoolers others were less likely to have done so.
Conclusion
The research by Cheng and Watson truly demonstrates that there are “Diverse Outcomes for A Diverse Population“. Some findings are encouraging, others are worrying. The variations between differently educated adults suggest that traditional schooling, homeschooling, and switching between the two might affect life trajectories. However, Cheng and Watson still warn that their work does not prove homeschooling as the cause of varying outcomes.
” It is important to reiterate that the associations between outcomes and amount of time someone was homeschooled should not be interpreted as causal. The analytic methods used in this report cannot account for every potential factor that leads to the differences observed among homeschoolers. Likewise, the findings in this report cannot speak to why homeschooling for different lengths of time might lead to different outcomes.”
Where will homeschool research go from here? It’s hard to say, but there are many things that could be investigated. Personally, I think there needs to be research done on the causes of concerningly low rate of college attendance among homeschoolers. I doubt that different life priorities are the only cause. Is the average homeschool education as academically rigorous as the average traditional school one? Do some homeschooled teens miss out on college-prep classes or tests? Even if the answers are discouraging, this is information homeschoolers should know. I would also like to see more investigation into the mental health of homeschool graduates. Anecdotally, I know of many homeschool graduates with mental health and social skills struggles. If the overall rate of these challenges is not actually higher in the homeschool population, then that is wonderful news, but it would still be good for further research to test the positive results of this study. Hopefully, future generations of homeschoolers will have access to more data than what is available today.
As someone who has been out of high school for a few years, I have had time to reflect on my homeschooling experience. Some of it was good, but it’s hard not to wonder what could have gone differently and even feel regret about certain things. So, I wanted to share some advice for homeschooled teens.
1. Make sure you’re prepared for whatever you want to do after high school.
This is something in which I succeeded. I knew I wanted to go to college (and thankfully my parents supported this), so I completed four years of high school level math, science and writing to be academically prepared. I took SAT prep seriously, because getting the highest score I could would help prove my merit in college applications and make more scholarships available. Extracurriculars such as orchestra and volunteering were also useful. The only thing I regret is not taking any dual enrollment courses. At the time, I was not motivated to do this, but now I see that the practice with time management might have made me more ready for college.
Before you graduate you should:
Make sure your parents are keeping a record of your schoolwork, grades, and extracurricular activities. If they aren’t, talk to them about it and do it yourself if necessary. No matter what you want to do, you should have evidence of your high school education!
Look up what the high school graduation requirements are in your state, and what is needed to pursue whatever higher education or training you may want to in the future.
Consider taking an SAT/ACT/GED test. I was able to register online to take the SAT at a public school. If you want to go to college, you will very likely need one of these.
Consider taking community college courses or something else (besides a homeschool co-op) that will get you experience in a real classroom setting.
2. Learn from various sources
I am grateful to have had access to the internet and the local library. This helped me expand my knowledge beyond my academically sound but sometimes biased homeschool materials. For example, astronomy books I checked out from the library discussed the big bang while my high school textbook didn’t. Everyone has biases, so make sure to explore both sides of issues.
If you are concerned that your curriculums are very biased, you may want to ask your parents if you can find another one. I should have.
3. Don’t be too isolated
Try hard to make friends! I failed at this one. During the school year, I attended activities 2-3 times a week but never made close friends. Maybe more activities would have made friendships easier, but I didn’t know what else was available and felt my mom might not be excited to drive additional places. I wish I’d been more outgoing and tried to arrange more get-togethers outside of co-op. There were a few families I knew that actually lived in my neighborhood, but I still didn’t go over to their houses very often. It felt awkward, but I wish I’d tried harder. Now I am surrounded by peers at college, but that doesn’t replace the experience of not having close high school friends.
Maybe my problems were just due to me being introverted, but it is easy to become isolated as a homeschooler. That is not just a stereotype. As a teen, I noticed that my mom never seemed to mind when activities were cancelled, as she was already busy taking care of a large family. She never seemed depressed by an empty schedule of nothing instead of seeing other people and doing fun classes. I don’t think my mom is an anomaly among homeschool parents either. During the pandemic, my homeschooled pen pal told me that her mom was happy she couldn’t be late for anything. Because there was nothing to be late for! Stay-at-home parents sometimes just want to stay home all the time, but being a stay-at-home teenager is not ideal. You should be in at least a few activities that allow free time for interacting with others your age. Only one of my activities (co-op) allowed that.
Once a week is not enough time to form close friendships.Advocate for yourself if you feel bored or lonely!
4. Consider your options.
Homeschooling is not the only option. This may sound strange, but when I was a teen it never even occurred to me to seriously consider not homeschooling, or to ask my parents to attend school. I just assumed homeschooling was better and since my parents had never offered me the choice of doing something else that didn’t register in my brain as an option. Now that some of my siblings are in school, I can see that it is an option and always could have been. I am frustrated with myself for somehow not realizing this before, because now I will never know if attending school would have actually been worse for me, or if I would have liked it.
If you have ever wanted to attend school, or are even curious about it, I recommend looking up schools in your area, and finding out their policies on accepting homeschoolers. Even if you only have a year or two left of high school, it is probably not too late.
If you consider the options and decide homeschooling is still the best choice for you, then that’s great. However, if your parents won’t let you choose anything else then that is not okay. To find some possibly useful information, try visiting the Coalition for Responsible Home Education website. They have advice on what to do if you are struggling with academics or your home life, especially if your parents are not supportive.
This is just what I’ve learned based on my personal experiences and research, and hopefully it’s useful to some of you readers. Every homeschooler is unique, but we all get an experience that is different from the mainstream. Homeschool curriculums are not the same as public school ones, and weekly activities are not the same as attending school every day. It is important to take advantage of the benefits of being homeschooled, while minimizing the potential downsides.
Hello, this is the first post on Homeschooled Voices. It is still very new, and I am trying to get it set up and formatted properly. In the future I hope this website will have lots of articles about homeschooling issues and personal testimonies from homeschool graduates. I will be posting my own work soon, and there may be other authors eventually as well. Keep checking this website for new content.
Homeschooled Voices 
