Benefits can continue to 19 while your student finishes high school. For a homeschool, the school official is you.

A child’s Social Security benefits (paid because a parent is retired, disabled, or has died) can continue past 18 to age 19, or until the student completes grade 12, when full-time school attendance is certified. A conventional school has a registrar to sign that certification. A homeschool has you: SSA’s own policy names the home school instructor as the certifying school official, and asks that instructor for evidence that the program meets state homeschool requirements. That evidence is the compliance file a homeschool family keeps anyway: either kept as the years happen, or assembled after the request arrives.

The rule: to 19, or grade-12 completion, with certified attendance

A child’s survivor or dependent benefits (the benefits paid to children of beneficiaries who are retired, disabled, or deceased) continue past 18 only while the student is in secondary school full time, and only with certified attendance. The continuation runs to age 19 or to completion of grade 12. The certification happens on Form SSA-1372-BK, the Student’s Statement Regarding School Attendance, which carries both the student’s statement and the school official’s certification.

Full-time attendance has a specific definition for this purpose:

Requirement	What it means
A non-correspondence course	The program is not a correspondence course.
At least 13 weeks	The course’s duration.
At least 20 hours a week	The scheduled instruction time.

Stated in calendar voice on purpose: these are the terms of an ordinary school year, measured over the year. A homeschool schedule that meets its state’s requirements is measured against the same definition.

The homeschool specifics: RS 00205.275, plainly

SSA policy RS 00205.275 addresses homeschool students directly. Four conditions, stated plainly:

The state recognizes homeschooling.
The program complies with state law.
The home school instructor acts as the certifying school official: for most families, the parent who teaches signs where a registrar otherwise would.
The instructor must submit evidence that state requirements for home schooling are met.

The fourth condition is the practical one. The parent who certifies attendance is also the person asked to show the program’s legitimacy, and the measure of legitimacy the policy points to is the family’s own state’s homeschool law.

The evidence is the compliance file you already keep

Every homeschool state defines compliance in artifacts, and those artifacts are what a family can show: in New York, the IHIP and quarterly reports; in Missouri, the daily hour log; in Pennsylvania, the portfolio and evaluation. A family that keeps that file as the years happen (each capture about thirty seconds, free) has the evidence pack on hand the day it is asked for, alongside the family-issued verifiable transcript that shows the secondary-school program itself.

Generating filled-in compliance artifacts from that record (an IHIP file, an hour-log summary, a portfolio package) is the one optional paid family service, part of Family Pro, $99 per year, and every document previews filled-in, free, first. One thing this page will not promise: approval. SSA makes the determination in every case. The family’s job is a clean, current file, and that job is entirely doable.

Why a family-owned record

No agency keeps this file for a homeschool family: the state asks the family to keep it, and SSA asks the family to show it. A record kept as the years happen is ready on the day it is suddenly needed, which is the whole point of owning it: the years of work and progression belong to the family, portable across states and across whatever the years bring. The evidence pack is a document that record produces, not the place it lives. Read the sovereignty contract.

Frequently asked questions

Do Social Security benefits continue past 18 for homeschooled students?

They can. A child's benefits (paid because a parent receives retirement or disability benefits, or has died) continue past 18 to age 19, or until the student completes grade 12, only with certified full-time school attendance. SSA policy (RS 00205.275) recognizes homeschool students for this purpose when the state recognizes homeschooling, the program complies with state law, the home school instructor acts as the certifying school official, and the instructor submits evidence that state homeschool requirements are met. SSA makes the determination in each case.

What is Form SSA-1372?

Form SSA-1372-BK is the Student's Statement Regarding School Attendance: the form through which full-time attendance is certified so a student's benefits can continue past 18. For a homeschool student, SSA policy has the home school instructor act as the certifying school official on it.

Who certifies school attendance for a homeschool student?

Under SSA policy RS 00205.275, the home school instructor acts as the certifying school official. For most families, that is the parent who teaches. There is no separate registrar to sign; the same policy asks the instructor to submit evidence that state requirements for home schooling are met.

What evidence of state compliance does SSA want?

The policy's words are that the instructor must submit evidence that state requirements for home schooling are met. It does not publish a fixed document list, and SSA decides what satisfies it in each case. The practical reading: the artifacts a state already requires of a homeschool family (an IHIP file in New York, an hour log in Missouri, a portfolio in Pennsylvania) are the natural evidence, because they are the state's own definition of compliance. The family's job is a clean, current file; the determination is SSA's.

What counts as full-time attendance?

For continuing a student's benefits, full-time attendance means a non-correspondence course lasting at least 13 weeks, scheduled at least 20 hours per week. A homeschool program that meets its state's requirements is measured against the same definition.

What does this cost?

The record is free for families, forever: capture, the daily log, the portfolio vault, the verifiable transcript, verification, export. Generating filled-in compliance artifacts from it, like an hour-log summary or a portfolio package, is the one optional paid family service, part of Family Pro at $99 per year, and every document previews filled-in, free, first.