Student Financial Services Homeschool Information

Westmont welcomes and has enrolled a number of home schooled students in recent years. The goal of this statement is to provide home school families with up-to-date information regarding their ability to qualify for state and federal need-based aid.

All students interested in receiving need-based financial aid from federal, state or institutional sources are required to fill out and submit the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA–http://www.fafsa.gov/).

The Federal Department of Education requires that home-schooled students satisfy an ability to benefit requirement in order to receive state and federal financial aid. In general, all students must produce documentation recognized by the state that shows that they have graduated from high school. For home-school students, any of the following options can satisfy the requirement:

1. Final high school transcript with graduation date, signed by a cognizant authority. A cognizant authority is a person who administers the program. In some cases that may be a parent.
2. General Education Development (GED) certificate or GED transcript that indicates that the student passed the exam.
3. Certification of a passing score on a test that the student’s state authorizes and recognizes as the equivalent of a high school diploma.  This includes tests similar to the GED, such as the High School Equivalency Test or the Test Assessing Secondary Completion.  Test transcripts are acceptable documentation if they indicate that the final score is a passing score or the student’s state considers the test results to meet its high school equivalency requirements. 

Should a homeschooled student be unable to provide one of the items listed above, , he or she may still be eligible for admission to Westmont and any Westmont merit-based scholarships for which he or she qualifies, but not need-based aid.

Please feel free to call the Office of Admissions at 800-777-9011 with any questions on this topic.