Straight to College: Homeschoolers Skipping High School

More and more homeschoolers are skipping the high school option - including the GED (Graduate Equivalency Diploma) - and heading straight to college ... community college, that is! No, I'm not talking about dual enrollment, just pure college credits!

Is it okay to skip high school?

More and more homeschool families are choosing to not choose high school, but to bypass it altogether. No high school transcript, no dual enrollment, no GED (high school graduate equivalency diploma). Instead, they just begin acquiring college credits from community college sometime around age 14 to 16, ending with a smooth transfer of credits to a four-year college or university at some later time. With 60 hours of college credit from a junior college or community college, a high school transcript is not even requested when one transfers to another college! (Note that community college may be available at different ages in different states.)

Here is the original teenage manifesto from Grace Llewellyn. Teens are not older children, they are young adults, and are capable and smart enough to be charting their own path without recourse to a cookie cutter education. Not limited to homeschoolers, Llewellyn urges teens everywhere to quit school and start living their real lives.

And why would anyone want to?

I first became aware of this possibility long before I had children. When I was at university, I met a girl who told me she had not graduated from high school nor taken the GED, and yet here she was, taking university classes alongside me. She had not been homeschooled, but did her junior year of high school as a transfer student to New Zealand. When she came back to the States, her school board decided they were not interested in figuring out how her credits should be transferred to her high school transcript. Instead, they wanted her to just redo her junior year during what should have been her senior year. Instead she dropped out of high school and worked as a nanny for a year, since her state did not allow her to enroll as a full-time student in community college until age 18. At 18, she enrolled in community college and acquired 60 hours of credits; then transferred directly to a university in another state. No one ever asked to see her high school transcript.

Immediately, this became my plan for my own children (though I didn't have any at that time, I already knew I would homeschool). Now that I homeschool, I am becoming aware that many of my homeschooling friends with children older than mine already know about this exciting option and are taking advantage of it - and doing incredibly well!

Blake Boles shares what homeschoolers have known for decades: teens are thriving everywhere without attending school! Blake will inspire you to seize the day and live well now, with every bit of confidence that the doors to college will be wide open to you. I am thrilled to have another messenger trumpet the truth that school is optional. I recommend all parents and educators to acquaint themselves with this information.

~ Kenneth Danforth, North Star Self-Directed Learning for Teens

How does that work?

This discussion is not about a fourteen-year-old moving onto a college campus, or even taking a full load of classes. This is about a teens living at home and supplementing parental instruction with a class or two, and moving up to a fuller courseload as they approach the traditional age of college entrance.

Many homeschoolers choose the option of dual enrollment. This is where a high school student attends community college and gets dual credit, for both high school and college credits. If this is the only option available, okay ... but I'm not sure I see the point. If one is getting college credit for a class, what is the point of getting high school credit too? It seems like a total redundancy to me.

Please feel free to comment on your choice!

(Also, please mention if you are a homeschooler or not.)

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