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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, often in hope that it will provide their children with a superior education and social development.
Despite its growing relevancy, studies on homeschool outcomes are few and often flawed. The research that does exist gives a messy, incomplete picture of homeschooling. Without enough research it is difficult to get an accurate picture of what the average homeschooled student is truly like.
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 only 1 year (20% of respondents) with an additional 16% percent of respondents spending only 2 years homeschooled. The next most common time was 13 years (17%), so K-12 homeschoolers were found to be a minority representing less than 1/5 of the total homeschool population. Homeschooling temporarily or making it a long-term commitment both seemed to be a bit more common for students than splitting their education more evenly between homeschooling and traditional schooling.
Is There a Higher Education Gap?
According to this study, there is a gap, with homeschoolers being less likely to pursue higher education.
The 2023 Cardus Education Survey revealed some 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, just that homeschooling for three or more years was correlated with lower pursuit of higher education among those surveyed. Unfortunately, the authors did not discover why the homeschoolers pursued higher education at lower rates.
Do Homeschoolers Earn Less?
According to this study, they do 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? Cheng and Watson speculate that 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 said yes in this study.
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. I believe that the first step would be to do more surveys like this one to see which outcomes are the most consistently reported. Replication would help researchers to be more confident in their evaluation of the homeschooling community. A good direction for research would be the causes of the apparent lower rate of college attendance among homeschoolers. Is it just a matter of different priorities? Are there barriers in the preparation or application processes? The results of this survey were a bit surprising to me as a homeschool graduate in college. I would also like to see more investigation into the mental health of homeschool graduates. What specific homeschooling experiences are correlated with good mental health? This information homeschoolers should want to know. 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. Much of it was good, but I definitely could have done better at some 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. 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 where you live, 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 that will get you experience in a traditional 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 only my assigned 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.
3. Don’t be too isolated
I could have done better with this. During the school year, I attended activities 2-3 times a week but never made close friends. More activities may have made friendships easier, but I didn’t know what else was available. 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.
It is possible to become isolated as a homeschooler. I’m not stereotyping homeschoolers as weird and unsocialized here; I’m just pointing out that socializing can require more effort when you are not in a traditional school. 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. I don’t think my mom is an anomaly among homeschooling 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 anymore! Stay-at-home parents sometimes just want to stay home, but being a stay-at-home teenager is not ideal. You should have free time to interact with others your age multiple times per week. Looking back now, I see that only one of my activities (co-op) allowed that, and that was only 2-3 times per month. My other activities either only had younger kids (American Heritage Girls) or weren’t meant for socializing (orchestra). I should have had more social time than that, and I should have listened to my feelings of not quite having enough. Advocate for yourself if you ever feel bored or lonely! And if that remember that even if you’re isolated now, you will have more freedom to go out into the world eventually.
4. Consider your options.
Plan your future! Research colleges and jobs and find out what it takes to apply. If there is anything in your current life you are unhappy about, you can at least try to find other options. Research extracurricular activities in your area. Some things you could try are libraries, community centers, scouting programs, homeschool groups, youth sports and summer camps. If you have a specific interest in doing something, look it up. If you are interested in switching to traditional school, research schools in your area. Even if you are already partway through high school, it is not too late to try something new if you think it might benefit you. One of my biggest regrets is that I was somewhat passive as a teen and accepted situations that could have been improved to make my decent homeschooling experience even better.
5. Final Advice
Finally, if you are struggling with academics or your home life try visiting the Coalition for Responsible Home Education website to find some advice. I just wanted to put this out there because I don’t know what your circumstances are, and I recognize not everyone has supportive parents like I did.
This is just what I’ve learned based on my personal experiences and research, and hopefully it’s useful to some of you readers. It is important to take advantage of the potential 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.
