The future
The future of homeschooling
Homeschooling grew sharply after 2020 and did not shrink back. What changes next is who does the teaching, and that changes what the parent's job is.
5 min read
Key takeaways
- Homeschooling grew substantially after 2020 and has not returned to its earlier level on any measure.
- The population diversified, and the reasons families give have broadened well beyond the religious motivations that characterised earlier decades.
- The constraint that shapes everything is parent capacity: most families can teach the early years and hit a wall at high school subjects.
- The change worth watching is the teaching itself moving outside the household, which turns the parent into a director of education rather than its deliverer.
- Accreditation and verifiable evidence remain the weakest part of home education, and the part most likely to be solved next.
Homeschooling grew substantially after 2020 and has not shrunk back. The interesting question is not whether it continues, but what happens when the teaching of difficult subjects stops requiring the parent to deliver it - because that changes the job from teaching to directing, and lifts the ceiling that currently makes families stop around ninth grade.
Where things stand
Federal survey data put 3.4 per cent of US students aged 5 to 17 as homeschooled in 2022-23, up from 2.8 per cent in 2018-19, with 5.2 per cent receiving instruction at home once full-time virtual schooling is counted. An independent estimate for 2024-25 puts the figure at about 3.4 million students, or 6.3 per cent, by a different method.
The sources disagree on magnitude and agree on direction. We have written about why the numbers differ so much.
Two qualitative changes matter as much as the counts. The population diversified: post-2020 growth was not concentrated in the demographics that historically dominated homeschooling. And the reasons broadened, from predominantly religious motivations toward a mixture of academic, safety, flexibility and fit concerns.
The constraint that shapes everything
Homeschooling's binding limit is parental subject capacity, and it is sharpest at secondary level.
Almost any attentive adult can teach a child to read and to do arithmetic. Very few can teach chemistry, calculus, a second language and literary analysis to a standard that holds up. This is why the attrition point is concentrated around ninth grade, and it is why the honest advice to new homeschooling families has always included "think about what you will do at high school".
Everything that happens next in home education is, in one way or another, a response to this constraint:
- Co-ops, which pool parents so each teaches their strength
- Dual enrolment at community colleges
- Online classes with a live teacher
- Hybrid schools, two or three days in a building
- Tutors, for the subject that cannot be covered
Each is a way of getting expertise the household does not have.
What changes next
The teaching moves outside the household, and the supervision does not. Each of the options above already does this; what changes is cost and availability. A difficult subject taught well, on demand, without scheduling around another family's calendar, removes the main reason families stop.
That redefines the parent's role rather than removing it. The job becomes choosing what matters, deciding when something is not working, keeping the relationship intact, and verifying that material landed. That last part cannot be outsourced: no tool knows whether your child is bluffing, and the check that works is a parent asking a child to explain.
Evidence becomes the differentiator. The weakest part of home education is proof. A parent-written transcript is unverifiable, which is why AP scores and standardised tests carry disproportionate weight for homeschool applicants. Expect more demand for records that someone outside the family can check: externally graded assessments, standards-mapped coverage, verifiable work samples.
The boundary with school keeps blurring. Full-time virtual school already accounts for 2.5 per cent of US students, and families increasingly combine home teaching, online classes, co-ops and part-time enrolment. The categories in the surveys are becoming less meaningful than the practice.
What probably does not change
Parents will still be the decision-makers, and this is the point of homeschooling rather than an inconvenience of it.
Socialisation will remain the first question strangers ask, and will continue to be addressed in practice by co-ops, sport, church, clubs and part-time enrolment.
Regulation will remain a state-by-state patchwork, moving in both directions in response to events.
Burnout will remain the main reason families stop, because it is a load problem rather than a resources problem, and more resources only partly address it.
Four things worth watching
Microschools and hybrid models. Small, often parent-organised groups meeting two or three days a week, sitting between homeschooling and a private school. The fastest-moving part of the sector and the hardest to count, because the families involved may describe themselves either way.
Public money following students. Education savings accounts and voucher programmes in a growing number of states now reach families educating at home. This changes the economics and brings reporting requirements with it, which is a trade families have not historically had to weigh.
Accreditation and verifiable records. The weakest part of home education is proof. Expect demand for externally graded assessment, standards-mapped coverage and portfolios a third party can check, driven by families who intend their children to apply to selective universities.
Subject capacity at secondary level. The constraint that decides how long a family continues. Anything that makes a difficult subject teachable without the parent delivering it lifts the ceiling, and this is where most of the current product activity is aimed.
What would change the trajectory
Two things could move this materially in either direction.
School quality and school safety. The post-2020 growth was substantially a response to schooling, not an endorsement of home education in the abstract. Families who left because of the environment would be the first to return if it changed.
Regulation after a high-profile failure. Home education is lightly regulated in most states, and the political response to a serious case of neglect has historically been state-level tightening. A national-scale case would move faster than anything else on this list.
What a homeschooling family should actually plan for
Less speculative, more useful:
- Assume subject help will be available and cheap. Build your high school plan around what you can supervise rather than what you can teach.
- Collect external evidence as you go. A test, a class, an exam, each year. Retrofitting proof at application time is much harder.
- Expect to be asked for records. Whether by a state, a college or a funding programme. Keeping a course description and work samples costs an hour a term.
- Protect the thing that does not scale. The reason home education works is attention and relationship. Everything on this page is about making room for that, not replacing it.
Where TruLearn fits
We are building for exactly the constraint above: a subject taught properly without the parent preparing it. TruLearn teaches AP Biology and introductory college biology by voice, draws as it explains, and asks the student to explain each idea back, graded against a rubric a person wrote.
What we are not doing is replacing the part of the job that is actually the parent's. There is no parent dashboard yet, one subject area is covered, and we have no outcome data of our own - all of which we say plainly. A prediction about this field that does not acknowledge how early it is should not be trusted.
Frequently asked questions
- Is homeschooling still growing?
- It grew sharply around 2020 and has stayed well above its pre-2020 level. Federal data put 3.4 per cent of US students as homeschooled in 2022-23, up from 2.8 per cent in 2018-19, and an independent estimate puts the 2024-25 figure substantially higher. Growth has slowed from the peak; the level has not reverted.
- What is the biggest problem homeschooling families face?
- Subject capacity at secondary level. A parent can teach reading and arithmetic; few can teach chemistry, higher mathematics and a foreign language at a standard that stands up. This is why families drop out of homeschooling around ninth grade more than at any other point.
- Will AI change homeschooling?
- It already is, in a specific way: it attacks the subject-capacity problem rather than the administrative one. If the teaching of a difficult subject can happen without the parent delivering it, the ceiling on how long a family can continue rises. What it does not change is supervision, judgement and the decision about what matters.
- Is homeschooling getting more or less regulated?
- It varies by state and moves in both directions, often in response to high-profile cases. The broad pattern is stable: homeschooling is legal everywhere in the US, with requirements ranging from a notice of intent to testing and portfolio review.
- Will homeschooled students be at a disadvantage for college?
- Not inherently, and admissions offices are well used to them. The persistent difficulty is evidence: a transcript written by a parent has no external reference, so homeschoolers rely on externally verifiable results such as AP scores and standardised tests more than schooled applicants do.
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