How to Make a Homeschool Diploma

Your homeschool diploma doesn’t need to be expensive to look professional! Here’s how we made classy and affordable ones ourselves.

Step 1: We designed our diplomas on Microsoft Word. (And by “we,” I mean my oldest daughter, the night before her homeschool graduation ceremony.) You could also use a free Canva account to make one.

Make sure you include:

• school name

• location

• graduation date

• parent signature(s) and title(s) (make up your own titles)

• the words "High School Diploma" (so it doesn't look like you're awarding a bachelor's degree)

Step 2: Buy some gold seal stickers ($9.32 for 250) and an embosser ($16.99). Embosser stamps are customizable; we got one with a tree to symbolize growth and we put “Soli Deo Gloria – To God Alone Be the Glory” around it. We also could have put our school name on it.

Bonus: You can also use an embosser over signatures on your high school transcripts, if you like. Looks extra professional, for the rare occasion that someone asks for a physical copy of the transcript.

Step 3: Buy a padded diploma cover ($6.98). The ones we got have a plastic sheet that slips over the paper diploma, and the padded cover is nice. You can pick whatever color you like.

The only disadvantage was that sometimes they arrived with bumped corners, but the supplier replaced them promptly, so not a problem. Just give yourself lead time in ordering in case you get one banged up in the mail.

Voila! Total diploma cost comes in at less than $14 per student, for a the average homeschool family with 4 kids. Plus, we used the embosser and leftover stickers to make diplomas for several dozen friends. If you make 100, the price drops to $7.24/student!

Remember that your student will not only need a DIPLOMA if he is graduating homeschool; he will also need a TRANSCRIPT… even if he doesn’t plan to go to college:

• He might need a transcript for a job application,

• OR he might change his mind 15 years from now and decide he wants to go to college after all and come to you asking for a transcript, and you will be 63 years old and have no recollection of anything you did in homeschool and be ready to strangle him.

So avoid familial violence; make the transcript now.

Watch: How to Make Homeschool Transcripts

***CAVEAT***

Hate that I have to state the obvious, but no diploma is valid unless issued by someone with the right to issue it.

• A person cannot award a diploma to himself.

• Diplomas can only be awarded by valid educational organizations.

If you homeschool and you are in compliance with your state homeschool laws, then you are a valid educational organization, and you have the legal right to issue a diploma to students you are graduating.

However, if you just want to pretend you graduated from somewhere and make yourself a fake diploma, then that is fraud, illegal, and may God deal with you appropriately.

End of public service announcement.

For the rest of you valid homeschoolers graduating your first student - congratulations!! This diploma represents the culmination of God's faithfulness to you and your child! To God be the glory!