How Can Homeschoolers Enlist In The Military?

Basic Info | After High School

Over the years homeschoolers have had difficulty entering the military because they did not have high school diplomas from an accredited school All branches of the military relegated potential homeschool recruits to Tier II status, which is reserved for high school dropouts. Tier I was reserved for high school graduates and those with some college. (Tier I candidates only have to score 35 on the military's aptitude test and Tier II candidates have to score 50).

This made it very difficult for homeschoolers, since the Air Force and Marines decided they would accept only Tier I candidates. Only about 10% of all Navy and Army enlistees were Tier II candidates. HSLDA was inundated with true stories from homeschoolers who scored over 90% on the military's aptitude test, met all the military's eligibility requirements, and yet were rejected simply because they did not have an accredited diploma.

By God's grace, HSLDA persuaded Senator Coverdell to introduce an amendment to H.R.3616, the Defense Authorization bill, to end this discrimination against homeschoolers. The bill creates a five-year pilot project automatically placing homeschool recruits into the Tier I status. Each branch of the military must allow up to 1,250 homeschool diploma recipients to be considered under the Tier I status.

The most important sections of the new law state:

"SEC.571. Pilot program for treating GED and Home School Diploma Recipients as high school graduates for determinations of eligibility for enlistment in the Armed Forces.

"(b) Persons Eligible Under the Pilot Program as High School Graduates.Under the pilot program, a person shall be treated as having graduated from high school with a high school diploma for the purpose described in subsection (a) if

"(2) the person is a homeschool diploma recipient and provides a transcript demonstrating completion of high school to the military department involved under the pilot program.

"(c) GED and Home School Diploma Recipients.For the purposes of this section

"(2) a person is a home school diploma recipient if the person has received a diploma for completing a program of education through the high school level at a home school, without regard to whether the home school is treated as a private school under the law of the State in which located."

Under this new law, military recruiters must accept a homeschool diploma or transcript regardless of the teachers' relationship to the student. Furthermore, a transcript or diploma prepared by the parent, as well as a high school diploma or transcript issued by a non-accredited homeschool correspondence course, satisfies the law's intent.

Homeschool students seeking to enlist in any of the four branches of the military, who meet all of the military's eligibility requirements, cannot be rejected simply on the basis of not possessing an accredited high school diploma.

Reprinted from the National Center for Home Education, a division of Home School Legal Defense Association, P.O. Box 3000, Purcellville, Virginia 20134. For further information you may call 1-540-338-7600.