Homeschool Statistics 2026: How Many Kids, Growth, Results and Costs

You will see wildly different homeschool numbers online, often without a source. The reason is simple: there is no single national count. Some states count every homeschooler, some count none, and the main national estimates use different methods.

This page collects the most reliable figures we could verify, says where each one comes from, and explains what it can and cannot tell you. We will update it as new data comes out.

Last reviewed: November 5, 2026.

How many children are homeschooled in the US?

There are two main estimates, and they differ by about half:

Source	Estimate	Year	Method
National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI)	About 3.4 million students, roughly 6% of K–12	2024–25	Built from state counts and surveys, with a stated range of 3.07 to 3.75 million (NHERI)
Federal survey data (NCES), as analyzed by Pew Research Center	About 3.4% of K–12 students	2022–23	National household survey (summary)

How to read this: both agree homeschooling grew sharply after 2020 and stayed higher than before. They disagree on the size. NHERI counts more broadly; the federal survey is narrower and older. If you need one sentence, "somewhere between about 3% and 6% of US school-age children" is honest.

Is it still growing? The Virginia example

States that count every homeschooler give the clearest trend lines. Virginia is one of the best, because its Department of Education publishes yearly totals.

• 2025–26: 66,117 homeschooled students, up 5.34% from the year before (Virginia Department of Education).
• Since 2019–20: growth of about 49%, according to the Home Education Association of Virginia's analysis of the same data (HEAV).

Note: the 49% figure is Virginia's, not the national number. Many websites mix the two up.

How do homeschoolers do academically?

The honest answer is "well, as far as we can tell, but the data has a big caveat."

• NHERI reports that homeschooled students typically score 15 to 30 percentile points above public school averages on standardized tests (NHERI).
• One study at a Midwestern university found that homeschooled students had higher first-year GPAs and higher graduation rates than their classmates (Cogan, Journal of College Admission, 2010).

The caveat: most of these studies rely on families who volunteer to share test scores, and families who test and report are not a random sample. That does not make the results false, but it means they cannot prove that homeschooling causes better scores. A careful reading is: many homeschooled students do very well, and there is no good evidence that homeschooling as a whole holds children back academically.

What does homeschooling cost?

There is no official figure for family spending. Surveys and curriculum price lists put typical out-of-pocket costs at a few hundred dollars to a little over a thousand dollars per child per year, depending mostly on whether you buy a boxed curriculum or build your own from free and used materials. Our curriculum buyer's guide breaks down real price ranges.

For comparison, public schools spend roughly $15,000 to $16,000 per student per year in current expenditures, paid by taxpayers, according to recent federal data (NCES, Condition of Education). The bigger cost of homeschooling for most families is not money but time, and often one parent's income.

What about socialization?

There is no national dataset on homeschool social outcomes. The research that exists, much of it reviewed by Richard Medlin in the Peabody Journal of Education (2013), generally finds homeschooled children doing as well as or better than peers on measures of social skills, with the same volunteer-sample caveat as above. Our guide to homeschool socialization covers the practical side.

Using these numbers responsibly

• Always say which source and which year you are quoting.
• Don't present NHERI's estimate and the federal estimate as the same thing.
• Don't treat state numbers (like Virginia's) as national.
• For anything legal, check your state's rules in our homeschool laws by state guide.