S-3747-119
Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 354.
Sponsored by Ashley Moody (R-FL)
What it does
This bill would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to formally classify students who completed secondary education through a home school program — where that home school is recognized as a home school or private school under their state's law — as high school graduates for federal student aid eligibility purposes. It would rename the relevant subsection of the law from "Students Who Are Not High School Graduates" to "Students From Non-Traditional Settings." The bill would not change state-level home school laws or create any new federal oversight of home school programs.
Who benefits
Home-schooled students seeking access to federal financial aid programs (Pell Grants, federal student loans, work-study) who currently face ambiguity about their graduate status. Families who home school for religious, philosophical, or pedagogical reasons. Colleges and universities that recruit home-schooled students and would have a clearer federal standard for admissions and aid processing. Home school advocacy organizations. Potentially, rural or low-income families who home school and rely on federal aid to make college affordable.
Who is hurt
Traditional public and private high school graduates who may face increased competition for limited federal aid funds from a newly clarified pool of eligible applicants. State education agencies that currently set their own standards for recognizing home school completions may face indirect pressure from a federal definition. Students in states where home schooling is not formally recognized as equivalent to private schooling could remain ineligible, creating unequal access across state lines. College financial aid administrators who would need to update verification procedures.
Supporters argue
Supporters argue that home-schooled students already demonstrate strong academic outcomes — home schoolers score, on average, 15–30 percentile points above public school peers on standardized tests, according to the National Home Education Research Institute — yet face unnecessary bureaucratic barriers to federal aid. They contend the bill simply aligns federal law with the reality that all 50 states already permit home schooling in some form, and that denying these students clear graduate status penalizes families for a legally recognized educational choice without any policy justification.
Opponents argue
Opponents argue that the bill creates a federal recognition standard with no accompanying accountability mechanism, since home school programs vary enormously in rigor, curriculum, and oversight across states. They contend that without minimum competency requirements tied to the "graduate" designation, federal aid dollars could flow to students whose preparation for college-level work is unverified, potentially increasing loan default rates and misallocating limited Pell Grant funds — concerns echoed in prior GAO reviews of non-traditional student aid eligibility.