History Main / CompulsorySchoolAge

** Played straight with Suzaku, who, despite being in the military, is ordered by Princess Euphemia to go to school at the same time.

* Justified and subverted in ''ComicBook/TheAdventuresOfBarryWeenBoyGenius'', whose titular hero chooses to remain in junior high, because he's [[IfMyCalculationsAreCorrect calculated]] that the socialization he receives there reduces the probability of being driven wholly insane by his constantly-increasing intellect from "Nearly Inevitable" down to "Merely Very Probable".
* The ''ComicBook/{{Bunty}}'' strip "My School Chum, Mum" was about a woman who used an anti-aging cream that worked too well, and had to attend school as the "cousin" of her daughter.
* Happens in an issue of ''ComicBook/HackSlash'', where Miss America On {{Phlebotinum}} GoneHorriblyWrong joins a boarding school with a secret LesYay club looking for human blood to keep her body young and beautiful.
* ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'' attempted to enforce this once, though it was quietly forgotten after the TimeSkip and hasn't been brought up since.
* ComicBook/{{Superboy}} was removed from the accelerated growth chamber he was grown in at the apparent age of 16. He had to take a test to see if he needed education or could just rely on his implanted knowledge and then skipped it to save Hawaii from the Silicon Dragons. High school it is. Then a few incidents convince the people involved that public schooling and superheroes without {{secret identit|y}}ies don't mix, so he starts getting home-schooled. When he later gets a proper secret identity, he starts attending high school, but it's never mentioned whether he get a G.E.D or the like in the time between.
* Both ComicBook/{{Raven}} and Miss Martian from ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'' wound up in high school at one point. In both cases, it was a deliberate decision on their part: Raven wanted a taste of the "normal" teenage life she never got to experience, and Miss {{M|eaningfulName}}artian wanted to learn how to fit in with humanity better.

* In ''Manga/OnimaiImNowYourSister'', when Mahiro is reduced from a 20-something {{NEET}} guy to a middle-school age [[GenderBender girl]], Mihari makes her enroll in a local middle school. This is, however, justified. When Mahiro was at an arcade in the middle of a school day, she was busted by a truant officer, and neither sibling wants a repeat of that incident.

* In ''The Dangerous Days of Daniel X'', Daniel tries to avoid this by using his powers to create clones of his parents to tell people he is homeschooled, but he does go to school eventually for a short time.

* Mexican light novel ''La Formula del Doctor Funes'' has the titular doctor developing a serum that causes him to return to being around 12 years old (though his plan was to become around 20). He takes the chance to go to the same school as the story's protagonist, who he had recently befriended. Later on, he has a discussion with the school's biology teacher and tricks her into taking the same formula (injected into an apple). The teacher is turned into a girl around 6 years old and starts going to elementary school again.

* {{Justified}} in ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'': [[VillainProtagonist Zim]] is posing as a human child due to [[TheNapoleon his height]], and attends [[XtremelyKoolLetterz skool]] in order to learn about the filthy, disgusting species he is planning to conquer. WordOfGod says that he's actually "[[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld older than any human alive]]."

This is, however, {{justified|Trope}} in many countries where homeschooling is not an allowed form of compulsory education. As a result, if a person needs to maintain that {{masquerade}}, they need to go to school. In some cases, parents in these countries will be served with a court order because they tried homeschooling their kids, and cases where such kids were taken away [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elian_Gonzalez Elian Gonzalez]]-style ''is not unheard of''. Many countries also ban {{grade skipp|er}}ing in general, often resulting in TeenGenius attending schools with average students.

* Alice, Jasper, Rosalie, Emmett, and Edward from ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' all go to school, though Rosalie, Emmett, and Jasper eventually graduate. Over the years, however, all of them have done this repeatedly--a few of them even went to college and medical school, multiple times. This is supposedly necessary because the younger they claim to be at the beginning, the longer they can live in one place without arousing suspicion because they don't age. Plus, it just looks weird to have a couple move in with their 5 barely-adult kids. But if the kids are still minors? Not odd at all. Of course, the constant lies regarding [[OurVampiresAreDifferent sunny days]] and "field trips" make it seem like it would be easier to say they were being homeschooled.

* In ''LightNovel/NyarukoCrawlingWithLove'' not only have Nyarko, Cuuko, and Hasta already graduated from [[SpaceX Space College]] by the time they show up on Earth (and have regular jobs as SpacePolice), they're also [[Creator/HPLovecraft Lovecraftian]] {{Cosmic Horror}}s of uncertain age[[note]]As in, when Mahiro tried to learn Nyarko and Cuuko's ages, the girls physically restrained and threatened him into dropping the subject[[/note]] -- but since their human forms are teenagers, they go to high school along with [[OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent Mahiro]].

* ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'' has this mixed. Touma and Tsuchimikado both still attend school despite all their adventures, but many teenaged or child characters do not due to various circumstances, such as Index, Accelerator, or ITEM's members. One scene in New Testament has Yoshikawa and Accelerator discussing enrolling Last Order in school (to which she strongly objects) in order to give her a somewhat more normal life.

* In ''LightNovel/NyarukoCrawlingWithLove'' not only have Nyarko, Cuuko, and Hasta already graduated from [[SpaceX Space College]] by the time they show up on Earth (and have regular jobs as SpacePolice), they're also [[Creator/HPLovecraft Lovecraftian]] {{Cosmic Horror}}s of uncertain age[[note]]As in, when Mahiro tried to learn Nyarko and Cuuko's ages, the girls physically restrained and threatened him into dropping the subject[[/note]] -- but since their human forms are teenagers, they go to high school along with [[OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent Mahiro]].

* Mexican light novel "La Formula del Doctor Funes" has the titular doctor developing a serum that causes him to return to being around 12 years old (though his plan was to become around 20). He takes the chance to go to the same school as the story's protagonist, who he had recently befriended. Later on, he has a discussion with the school's biology teacher and tricks her into taking the same formula (injected into an apple). The teacher is turned into a girl around 6 years old and starts going to elementary school again.

This is, however, {{justified|Trope}} in many countries where homeschooling is not an allowed form of compulsory education. As a result, if a person needs to maintain that {{masquerade}}, they need to go to school. In some cases, parents in these countries will be served with a court order because they tried homeschooling their kids, and cases where such kids were taken away [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli%C3%A1n_Gonz%C3%A1lez Elian Gonzalez]]-style ''is not unheard of''. Many countries also ban {{grade skipp|er}}ing in general, often resulting in TeenGenius attending schools with average students.

This is, however, {{justified|Trope}} in many countries where homeschooling is not an allowed form of compulsory education. As a result, if a person needs to maintain that {{masquerade}}, they need to go to school. In some cases, parents in these countries will be served with a court order because they tried homeschooling their kids, and cases where such kids were taken away Elián-style ''is not unheard of''. Many countries also ban {{grade skipp|er}}ing in general, often resulting in TeenGenius attending schools with average students.

* ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'' attempted to enforce this during the early days of the comic's DorkAge. It quietly forgotten after the TimeSkip and hasn't been brought up since.

* Sometimes seen in fanfics, especially of the [[SelfInsertFic self-insert variety]], to allow the AuthorAvatar to interact with the main cast of a high-school/college-set show or vice-versa.