New report confirms homeschooling popularity is surging
By : Natalie Lo
A new report estimates that more than 3.4 million children in America are homeschooled – signaling yet again that the post-COVID homeschool surge is here to stay.
The study is from the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), which examined the number of homeschooled students across the country. Researchers for NHERI used data from the 2024-2025 school year from 23 different states. They concluded that an estimated 3.408 million, or 6.262 percent, of school-aged children in the U.S. are homeschooled.
While Missouri was not included in the NHERI data set, we can say that the estimate is on mark. Here at the Policy Research in Missouri Education (PRiME) Center, we’ve done groundbreaking research into the number of homeschooled students in Missouri.
In November 2024, PRiME estimated that 61,000 children in Missouri were homeschooled in 2023. Missouri has approximately 1 million school-aged children, which means that an estimated 6.1 percent of school-aged children are homeschooled. Missouri does not require parents to report to the government that their children are homeschooled, so we used various research methods and estimates similar to NHERI’s study to arrive at our conclusions.
Not only did PRiME put a number to Missouri’s homeschool population, we also found that the number of children homeschooling in Missouri has doubled since 2019. Many believed that after the pandemic, the number of homeschoolers would drop and anyone who attended a traditional public school would return. But the data told us otherwise.
Likewise, NHERI’s findings support the idea that a new, larger homeschool population here in America is here to stay. NHERI estimates that 3,751,000 children were homeschooled in 2021. While the 3.408 million estimated in 2025 is smaller, the numbers are not that significantly different. In comparison, NHERI estimates that 1,400,000 children were homeschooled in 2003.
Published March 11, 2026
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A new report estimates that more than 3.4 million children in America are homeschooled – signaling yet again that the post-COVID homeschool surge is here to stay.