Published: 2025-08-10
Last Updated: 2025-08-10
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In many places, U.S. educational requirements are as little as you want or feel is necessary. This is because, for many households, a private/homeschooled education surpasses what the public school system is able to provide.
On average, an immigrant from a good household can learn to speak 2-5 languages by the age of 5, and expect to have their entire US high school requirements completed at home with use of a library by the age of 12 and no later than 15.
With languages consider that Spanish, French, and Italian are very similar, English has different dialects, and German has many languages based on its phonetics. This leaves Russian and Chinese, and other languages that are not in common use throughout the western hemisphere such as Arabic, Hindi, Thai, or Japanese those are normally learned as needed or with permission.
College level math is essentially geometry, trigonometry, algebra, and correlation formulas. Groups of similarities that show a defined pattern of likeness.
For many immigrant families these are 5th to 6th grade when using a US grade level system. High school also requires reading and literature. Expect that a person growing up with religious text can read the Iliad, Homers Oddesey, or Greek Fables by the age of 12-13 if not younger. Ten years old seems like a more accurate estimate because there are normally multi-language dictionaries at home.
This leaves physics lab, chemistry, biology, personal budgeting, and job search for high school which is essentially driving, over the counter medicines and nutrition, evolution and adaptation, paying bills, and chores.
Certain jobs will have a higher level of chemistry or lab work such as material scientist which requires starting a business and getting permits in industrial areas. Others are more mundane and require very little equipment such as a laptop and a printer or a filing cabinet in a garage or basement.
Overall this has changed very many things in the USA regarding education. The people have voted for high school or less and the Department of Education has made online high school and GEDs more widely available. CLEP exams or online schools like Sophia and Study.com allow transfer credits to colleges.
Overall, a bachelor is recommended for a doctor or lawyer and many people are suggesting 12 credit 1-2 semester certificates for all other workers that aren't confident with their high school diploma.
This is a developing policy area but not too many people will be getting a PhD today. They will be taking 1 or 2 classes in qualitative and quantitative reasoning instead and select an area of research which might be 1 or 2 more classes.