Latest Updates

August 12 | Awaiting Vote in US Senate

H.R. 6392 unanimously passed the US House of Representatives and the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee. The last step is a vote by the full Senate. S. 3747 is also currently waiting to be scheduled in the Senate.

The toughest challenge for these bills and the COMPASS Act  will be garnering enough votes in the Senate. We need your help to reach all 100 senators before they return to Washington in September.

Please consider taking these steps to help these bills pass the Senate:

  1. Please email your senators here. If you have a personal story about how these bills would help you, please share it. 
  2. Call your US senators at their DC office (202-224-3121), with a simple message: “Please help homeschool families by supporting the Home School Graduation Recognition Act, S. 3747, and the COMPASS Act, S. 4783 .”
  3. Attend an upcoming virtual or in-person town hall meeting with your US senators and ask them to support the Home School Graduation Recognition Act, S. 3747, and the COMPASS Act, S. 4783. The best way to find out when and where your  senators are having a town hall meeting is to check their webpage, social media, or call their office.

Summary of H.R. 6392/S. 3747

As homeschooling became more popular in the 1980s and 1990s, there were many questions about whether homeschool graduates could access federal student aid and attend colleges and universities.

To protect homeschool graduates from discrimination, HSLDA worked with our friends in Congress to amend the Higher Education Act in 1998. This groundbreaking amendment made it clear that homeschool high school graduates are eligible for federal student aid.

But there was a wrinkle: homeschooling was still looked upon with suspicion even in 1998, and Congress put the eligibility language for homeschool students under a heading intended for students “Who Are Not High School Graduates.” This header language has caused confusion for decades, even while the underlying law and guidance from the US Department of Education made it clear that homeschool high school graduates are eligible for federal student aid.

We have seen instances where institutions of higher education, most notably trade schools, cosmetology schools, and the University of Phoenix, refuse to accept homeschool high school graduates, most often motivated by fear that homeschool graduates are not technically high school graduates for the purposes of federal law.

These bills will simply change the header to “From Non-Traditional Settings” and clarify that homeschool graduates are high school graduates and should be treated the same as graduates from public or private schools.