How to Homeschool High School in Louisiana (2026): Diplomas, TOPS, and College

How Homeschool High School Works in Louisiana

Louisiana lets you homeschool two ways: a BESE-approved home study program, or registration as a nonpublic school not seeking state approval. Either path satisfies the state's compulsory attendance law, and both let you teach whatever curriculum fits your student. The choice matters most once high school starts, because TOPS eligibility runs through the BESE-approved home study program, not through the nonpublic-school-not-seeking-approval route. A family that has been running an unapproved nonpublic school through middle school may need to switch tracks before ninth grade if TOPS is part of the plan.

In either path, the state does not issue a homeschool diploma, so you are the one who sets the graduation requirements, keeps the transcript, and signs the diploma when your student finishes. A diploma from a BESE-approved home study program carries the clearest recognition, and the department's own wording is stronger than a paraphrase: these diplomas "have the same rights and privileges as those awarded to a BESE Approved Nonpublic School" and are "recognized by all public secondary educational institutions, state departments, agencies, boards, and commissions and all other state/local government entities." That covers Louisiana's public colleges, its licensing bodies and its agencies. Private employers set their own policies and no state document speaks for them, though we have not found a Louisiana employer that treats one differently. We cover the two paths, including how to register for each, in the Louisiana homeschooling guide, and that is worth reading before you lock in a track for the high school years.

Set Graduation Requirements and Build the Transcript

You decide what your diploma requires. If TOPS is not a goal, you have wide latitude to set requirements that fit your student's interests and pace. But if TOPS is a goal, build the transcript around the TOPS core curriculum, and build it to the real numbers rather than to a general shape. LOSFA's core curriculum comes to 19 units in total, with at least four units of mathematics and four of science among them, alongside English, social studies and a foreign language whose counts move by graduation year. Pull LOSFA's Core Curriculum Reference Table for the year your student will graduate and track against it by year, because a transcript that is one unit short in a single subject is the kind of thing nobody notices until an admissions review. Even though homeschoolers qualify for TOPS mainly on the ACT score rather than a school-verified grade average, documenting the core courses on the transcript still matters, because Louisiana's public universities look for evidence of the TOPS core curriculum during the admission review, separate from the scholarship decision itself.

Write the four-year plan at the start of ninth grade rather than assembling it after the fact. Build the transcript as you go, listing each course by name, the credit value, and the grade earned, with a cumulative grade average carried alongside it even though that average will not be the basis for the TOPS award. A clean transcript in a consistent format across all four years, signed and dated by the parent acting as school administrator, is the standard document Louisiana colleges expect. A free reading assessment shows you where your student stands before you map that four-year plan, which matters if foundational skills need shoring up before the high school workload gets heavier.

TOPS: The Homeschool Pathway

Here is what Louisiana families most want to confirm before they commit to a high school plan: your homeschool graduate can earn TOPS, the state's flagship merit scholarship, so long as two conditions are met. First, your student completes both the eleventh and twelfth grades in a BESE-approved home study program. A student who switches into the approved program partway through eleventh grade, or who completes only twelfth grade in it, does not meet this condition, so the timing of the switch matters if you started under a different arrangement earlier in high school.

Second, your student earns a qualifying ACT score, and because homeschoolers are judged mainly on the test rather than a school-verified grade average, that score carries most of the weight in the scholarship decision. The thresholds run on a tiered scale, and LOSFA states them in two places that do not fully agree. For TOPS Performance and TOPS Honors, the award pages carry an explicit line for BESE-approved home study students: a 24 and a 28, each one point above the standard score, granted in place of the core units and grade average a schooled applicant has to show. For TOPS Opportunity and TOPS Tech there is no such line, and the only figures LOSFA publishes for home study students sit on its home study page, at 20 and 17. Opportunity's own page adds that its standard moves with the prior year state average and never falls below 20, so treat 20 as a floor rather than a fixed target. An earlier version of this page said 22 and 19 for those two awards, which no LOSFA page states. Confirm all four with LOSFA for your student's graduation year before you build a plan around them, because the award amount and the list of eligible institutions expand as the tier rises and the difference is worth real money. Because the ACT does this much work, plan the testing schedule early. Many homeschool families have their student sit for the ACT starting in tenth grade, treat the first attempt as a baseline, and plan one or two additional sittings in eleventh and twelfth grade to move up a tier if the first score lands just below a threshold. We link the funding side of Louisiana homeschooling in more depth in our Louisiana homeschooling guide.

Dual Enrollment and Issuing the Diploma

Louisiana community colleges accept homeschool students for dual enrollment, usually starting around age sixteen, subject to placement testing and the individual campus's admission requirements for high school students. Major university systems, including LSU, also accept homeschool applicants for dual enrollment courses with the right documentation, usually a transcript showing the student's current grade level and a placement or standardized test score. Dual enrollment earns real college credit on a college transcript, which shortens time to a degree later, and it strengthens a four-year college application by showing a homeschool student can succeed in a graded college classroom.

When your student meets the graduation requirements you set at the start of ninth grade, you issue the diploma yourself, dated and signed as the school administrator of the home study program. A diploma from a BESE-approved home study program stands for college admission, employment, and military enlistment, with no GED required at any point. Our homeschooling guide is a useful resource for planning the high school years as a whole, from course selection through the transition to college.

Students With Learning Differences

If your student had an Individualized Education Program in public school, those services end when you run a home study program, and that holds true through high school just as it does in the earlier grades. You can build accommodations directly into your own program, adjusting pace, format, and testing conditions without needing anyone's sign-off. College disability services open once your student enrolls as a college student, including through dual enrollment courses taken while still in high school, so documentation gathered during a dual enrollment class can carry forward into full college enrollment later. Plan that documentation early, since colleges and standardized testing accommodations can ask for recent evaluations, and assembling that paperwork in eleventh grade is far easier than doing it under a deadline during senior year.

A Note from Homeschool Teacher Guide: What This Really Means for You

Louisiana ties your biggest scholarship to one early decision, so make it on purpose. If TOPS is a goal, run a BESE-approved home study program for eleventh and twelfth grade, and build the transcript around the TOPS core courses from the start of ninth grade, against LOSFA's 19-unit reference table for your student's graduation year, so nothing has to be reconstructed later. Then treat the ACT as the main event, because for homeschoolers the score is what unlocks the award level, from LOSFA's 17 for Tech up to a 28 for Honors, so schedule it early with room to retake if the first score lands short of the tier you want. You issue the diploma, and a BESE-approved home study diploma is recognized statewide by colleges and employers alike. Our Louisiana homeschooling guide covers the two paths in full, including how to register for each one.