Tennessee’s Free Real Estate Licensing Program for Qualifying High School Seniors Begins Accepting Applications Starting April 21

NASHVILLE – The Tennessee High School Senior Real Estate Licensing Program, which began in 2024 through the Tennessee Real Estate Commission, will begin accepting applications starting Monday, April 21, 2025.

The program gives qualifying high school seniors across the Volunteer State a free way to potentially start their real estate sales careers, begin earning money, and get career experience while completing their high school coursework. 

The Tennessee Real Estate Commission part of the Tennessee Department of Commerce & Insurance’s Regulatory Boards Division.

“I’m incredibly proud of the extraordinary interest that the Tennessee High School Senior Real Estate Licensing Program experienced during the program’s inaugural year, as it’s a sign that our young people are eager for potential economic opportunities,” said TREC Executive Director Denise Beard Baker. “For 2025, we’ve made some strategic updates to the program’s requirements that we believe will benefit the program and its enrollees.”

While the program is aimed at providing an opportunity to high school students, the educational standards needed to become a licensed real-estate agent in Tennessee have not been changed for the program. All participants in the high-school program must still meet the same qualifications that all other age groups hoping to earn a license must meet.

Other details include: 

• Students must complete the 60-hour Tennessee Affiliate Broker pre-licensing course as well as the 30-hour Tennessee New Affiliate course through TDCI’s licensing education partners at Kaplan, a U.S.-based global educational services company.
• Once students have enrolled, they have 100 days (even after high school graduation) to complete the program.
• Upon completion of the courses, students must successfully complete state and national real-estate exams.
• The program is limited to approximately 150 high school seniors. In the event that selected students do not complete the program, TREC will offer the vacant spots to individuals on the waiting list, in the order in which their applications were received.
• While the program is available to all Tennessee graduating seniors, the program has a dedicated focus on Tennessee’s economically distressed counties.

An FAQ page about the program can be found here.

"TREC is proud of the launch of our program, and we hope that we can capitalize on the interest we garnered last year during its inaugural year,” said TREC Commission Chairman Geoff Diaz of Memphis. “Students should remember that the standards that need to be met in order to become a licensed real-estate agent have not been lowered. Instead, our program gives eager, hard-working, and intelligent young people a way to get started on their career and building personal wealth, but only if they can complete their coursework and successfully pass their exams. The program’s success will benefit the state’s economy while providing qualifying young people with real-world experience they can draw upon for a lifetime.”

Questions? Educators, parents, and students should contact TREC staff by email at trec.hsprogram@tn.gov for additional details.

An application to the program can be found here.

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