Madison Beer was raised in Jericho, New York, a sleepy Long Island suburb where Friday night football games and after-school activities continue to shape adolescent life. For a while, she was just another child going through Jericho Middle School’s hallways, participating in school plays, taking singing lessons after school, and daydreaming about something bigger. Then, when I was thirteen, everything was different.
The internet reacted right away when Justin Bieber posted her rendition of Etta James’s “At Last” on YouTube in the summer of 2012. She became popular in a matter of days. She signed a record deal in a matter of weeks. And in the midst of all of that chaos, the issue of what to do about school unexpectedly got complicated.
After that, Madison Beer’s education differed greatly from that of her peers. Her decision to start homeschooling in the seventh grade was more pragmatic than philosophical. In order to pursue what had turned into a full-time career, her mother moved to Los Angeles with her. It was never going to be simple to fit algebra into a schedule that included media appearances, recording sessions, and label meetings. Years later, she described homeschooling as “really the only proper choice” after she signed.
It’s important to give that some thought because it’s a topic that isn’t discussed as openly as it ought to be. Even for something as exciting as a career in music, dropping out of traditional school at thirteen means sacrificing a particular kind of normal. The lunch tables, the lockers, and the gradual social education that comes from spending daily time with other teenagers. Beer has been candid about being made fun of and not doing well in school before her career took off. It was probably both a relief to leave school and a loss to mourn.
In the end, she completed her high school education at Jericho High School, which she had previously attended prior to homeschooling. That particular detail conveys something. Even though there must have been very little external pressure to finish and obtain that credential, there was obviously a commitment to doing so. A rising pop star wasn’t being asked for her diploma.
But college never materialized. Beer has addressed this directly, stating that a traditional university path was practically unachievable due to her homeschooling background and the demands of her career. In an interview with Rolling Stone in 2025, she stated, “I can’t go to college because I’ve been homeschooled.” Due to my profession, I only have a high school degree. That statement has a certain clarity mixed with an honest frustration. She made the trade even though she knew what she was trading.
What’s intriguing is what took the place of formal education. In 2023, Beer published a memoir called The Half Of It, which was hailed for its emotional intelligence and unvarnished honesty. Even though it doesn’t count toward credit hours, writing a memoir at the age of twenty-four, processing childhood trauma, career turbulence, and public scrutiny with enough self-awareness to put it on paper, is a form of education.
Celebrities who did not go to college are often viewed as either inspirational success stories or cautionary tales. In this case, neither framing is quite appropriate. A mother shared a video on Facebook, and a stranger forwarded it to the appropriate person, all of which influenced Madison Beer’s educational path. The decisions that followed weren’t really decisions at all; rather, they were reactions to something that happened more quickly than any adolescent could have anticipated.
Whether she truly regrets the path she didn’t take is still up for debate. Her body of work makes it clear that her discipline and curiosity took her farther than a lecture hall could have.
