Far from being something for “losers,” the GED is a chance for people to turn their lives around. Staying in the same place, with a low paying job, or no job at all, and low self-esteem is not the answer. The GED is the path to get back on track, and one of the best roads it can lead to is college.

Recently, three students who earned their GEDs at New Mexico State University were profiled in the Cibola Beacon. All three have gone on to succeed in college, on their ways to new careers. Stefanie Grandjean, mother of a seven-year-old daughter, is studying to become a nurse with a graduate degree, as well as teaching math to other students studying for their GEDs.

Arnold Davis also works for the GED program where he studied for his GED. He is studying for a degree in automotive mechanics and is active in student government. His future goals include earning a degree in social work. Sandra Daily, who earned her GED in 2006, already has an AA in general studies and is planning to get a degree in fine arts. Over the course of three months, she went from grade-school level to being ready for college.

The GED is a step forward, toward more confidence, higher education, and better jobs. It is a path toward tearing down those walls built up by voices saying, “You’re stupid.” Just succeeding at the GED goes a long way toward students regaining belief in themselves.

See the Cibola Beacon article here: http://www.cibolabeacon.com/articles/2009/11/05/features/doc4af36314ae42e018756565.txt

Why would a medical doctor go back to earn a high school equivalency diploma? When Adams went to college early in the 1940s, he wasn’t required to graduate high school. He skipped forward again into medical school, at a time when the requirements weren’t as formalized as they are today. In more recent years, Adams has been active in water issues in his community of West Linn, Oregon, and he wanted to earn certification as a water plant operator. That’s when he ran into a problem. The certification requires a high school diploma.

Adams’s problem is similar to the situation many adults today are facing. In the past, many jobs and opportunities were open to those without a high school diploma. In many cases, quitting high school early didn’t seem like a major issue, since it was easy to enter the job market without a diploma. That’s changed. If a person without a high school diploma or GED loses their job, it’s much harder to get a new job now, without a diploma. Promotions, higher education, and changes in career can be closed off, even to a seasoned professional, without a diploma.

The good news is that the GED gives adults the opportunity to catch up with a world that demands a high school diploma. Adams took a GED practice test and discovered that he was ready to earn a GED right away, and many adults will have the same experience. For many others, just a few weeks of brush-up is enough to catch up on high school skills and be ready for the GED. Even for those who left school many years ago or didn’t do well in school, a good study program can provide quick and easy preparation.

A high school diploma is quickly becoming a necessity in today’s world, even for someone like William Adams, with many accomplishments and a long-standing career. For the 39 million American adults with no high school diploma, the GED is the answer, and it’s never too late to start moving forward with a GED diploma.

Graves knew that she’d need to get her high school diploma to move forward with her life. That’s when she found out about the GED. Instead of taking night classes to finish high school, Graves was able to earn her GED diploma. Now, Graves works as an office manager. This year, she spoke at the GED graduation ceremony for local GED graduates, who included her two youngest brothers who earned their GED this year.

Graves hopes to earn a college degree, and keep moving forward in her life. Her story shows the challenges that face American adults who never graduated high school. The GED provides the opportunity to qualify legitimately for the better jobs and higher education that allow adults to care for their families and accomplish their goals in life.

The road to success takes a commitment to get your GED, but passing the GED is an achievable goal. Many people can prepare for the exams with a few weeks of brush-up. Most adults have more of a foundation of high school skills than they think. Learners, even if they’ve been out of school for a while or had trouble in the classroom, can gain the essential skills the GED tests through a good study program. Taking Pam Graves’ example and earning your GED can be a breakthrough decision for the rest of your life.

Paul Salopek was born in Barstow, California in 1962. He dropped out of high school, and he took the GED to earn his high school equivalency. He didn’t stop there. While working as a fisherman and farm worker, Salopek earned a degree in environmental biology from UC Santa Barbara, graduating in 1984. When his motorcycle broke down in New Mexico a year later, he took a job at a local newspaper to earn money to repair his bike. It was the beginning of a career.

Salopek has worked for National Geographic and Texas’s El Paso Times. Currently he is a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, writing about Africa, Central Asia, and the Balkans. In 1998, he won a Pulitzer Prize for writing about the Human Genome Diversity Project, and in 2001, he won another for his writing about Africa, including the civil war in Congo. He has written about over 50 countries throughout the world. In 2006, Salopek was held in prison for five weeks in Darfur, one of the many conflict zones he’s travelled to as a writer.

Salopek is the recipient of the 2009 Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award for courageous journalism. As part of the award, he received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Colby College in Waterville, Maine.

Paul Salopek took his GED and went to the ends of the earth with it. That’s what the GED is for. It opens doors for adults who need more opportunity, for better jobs, higher education, and personal fulfillment. Each GED earned represents the potential for achieving a dream.

Take a look at unemployment rates in 2008. No high school diploma? The unemployment rate was 9%. Among high school graduates, it was only 5.7%. That’s lower by more than a third. What if you earned a 2-year Associate degree at a community college? The unemployment rate was only 3.7% among people with Associate degrees. The more education you earned, the lower your chances of being unemployed. That means education equates to jobs.

But what kind of jobs? That’s where income comes in. Among people 25 and over who had full-time jobs, the median weekly income for people without a high school diploma was $426 in 2008. With a high school diploma, it jumped to $591 a week, an increase of nearly 40%. With that 2-year Associate degree, median income $736 a week. More education equates to better paying jobs.

Here is the complete data table from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:
2008 Unemployment rate    Education attained    2008 Median weekly earnings
2.0%                           Doctoral degree                       $1,555
1.7%                           Professional degree                $1,522
2.4%                          Master’s degree                       $1,228
2.8%                          Bachelor’s degree                    $978
3.7%                          Associate degree                      $736
5.1%                          Some college, no degree          $645
5.7%                          High-school graduate              $591
9.0%                          Less than a HS diploma           $426

The opportunities that education gives you are too good to pass up. If you don’t have your high school diploma, look into the GED. You can get more education, and more education means more opportunity.

Income for adults without high school diplomas has dropped up to $8,000 over the past 20 years, while salaries for the college educated continue to rise. Education has become essential in today’s competitive, information-based job market. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 80% of the fastest-growing jobs in the United States require some sort of education or training after high school. People without high school educations earn the least income and have the highest unemployment in the country, over 6%. The outlook doesn’t seem promising for the millions of adult Americans without high school diplomas. What are the options?

The good news is that adults without high school diplomas can earn more money if they develop the critical skills taught in high school and get a credential that shows it. A GED graduate earns on average $9,000 more each year, and much more if they go on to higher education. The GED is the nationally accepted equivalent of a high school diploma, qualifying recipients for many jobs and for 95% of colleges. If a GED graduate pursues higher education at one of those career or technical colleges, community colleges, or universities, his or her earnings potential can go up even more. College graduates earn $26,000 more per year than people without high school degrees. That can mean upwards of a million extra dollars over the course of a full career.

How can a working adult with responsibilities earn a GED or beyond? Many adults have jobs, spouses, and children. As much as GED candidates want to better their situations, they need to pay rent and care for their families. Luckily, preparing for the GED is not as hard as they may think. Adult education is available throughout the U.S., through community colleges, adult education centers, workplace programs, and traditional test-preparation booklets.

For adult learners, the Internet also provides new options for training and education. Many online study programs are designed to meet the specific needs of adults with full-time jobs and families. Learners can prepare for the GED at home or anywhere they have access to a computer, at their own pace. Technologically driven GED preparation programs can provide innovative, entertaining, multimedia programs that cater to students who did not learn well in a traditional school environment.

The Internet offers a solution to people who have been trapped, with the responsibilities of a home and family and a job, without opportunities to get ahead. Because of its flexibility, programs like The GED Academy’s online GED prep program give adults the ability to schedule their own study time and study at home, at their own speed, without worrying about transportation or babysitters.

Getting a GED is a second chance for millions of Americans, and the Internet is offering new inroads to better jobs, college, and higher self-esteem.

A recent study, “The Effect of Earning a GED on Recidivism Rates” (http://essentialed.org/research.htm) shows that inmates who earned their GED while incarcerated were up to 14% less likely to return to prison in the next three years. With the cost of incarcerating a prisoner well above $20,000 per year and the number of inmates rising, correctional facilities are focusing on finding efficient ways to reduce recidivism, and implementing GED programs is a promising possibility.

The needs of prison systems are well defined. Correctional facilities often have limited resources… few teachers, little technical support, and little budget for equipment. Their adult learners have difficulty in classroom environments, and each individual has his or her own areas of weakness, gaps in education that need to be filled. It’s challenging.

The problem of creating an effective GED program with limited resources to serve a widely varying population seems daunting, but it is achievable with innovative educational software. The GED Academy software prep program offers a guarantee that adult learners will pass the GED using the program.

The GED Academy’s approach is to combine entertainment with learning, using storytelling to engage people who lack study skills and who function poorly in a classroom. The program uses a simple, cross-platform technology developed for the web. That means it doesn’t need an expensive, top-of-the-line computer. It can run on any system.

The software is simple, flexible, and easy to use. The courses follow a virtual classroom, peopled with adult GED students, including Curtis, an ex-convict trying to turn his life around. The GED Academy wanted to give adult learners people they could relate to, and relate their learning to their real life. How is this going to help me get a job? How is this going to make my life better? Those are the questions students ask.

Software-based educational programs have many benefits. Students can learn independently and receive immediate feedback through electronic quizzes. The costs are minimal, and since The GED Academy provides teacher support both online and on the phone, no teacher is necessary. The main criticism of independent learning software is that learners need to remain motivated to use the software. To counter this criticism, The GED Academy relies heavily on humor and character interactions in the virtual classroom, as well as providing Internet-based forums for group discussion, writing critiques, and support.

Motivation is key. To create motivation in the learner, you need to appeal to what the learner cares about… real life issues, making success possible.

It’s no secret that life is easier with a GED diploma. You’re qualified for more jobs, and you can go to college to train for a career. Plus, you gain the self-respect that comes with earning your diploma. A lot of people are afraid the GED will be too hard, though. They have jobs and children, and so they don’t have time for classes. Plus, they had a hard time in school and aren’t looking forward to another classroom.

Earning the GED doesn’t have to be hard, with the right preparation, and there are a lot of options for GED preparation. Traditional GED classes are often available for low cost at your local adult school, community college, or library, and GED preparation books are available at libraries, bookstores, and online.

The most promising new option for GED prep, though, is online learning. Many GED learners struggle with traditional textbooks, but online GED preparation can provide guided, interactive, easy-to-understand learning tailored to you. It’s better than a classroom for most learners because you can study at home, at your own pace. Through your computer, you can get personalized, one-on-one study time that helps you prepare for the GED quickly and easily.

Whichever kind of GED preparation works best for you, it’s important to make a commitment to get a GED, if you’re an adult without a high school diploma. As time goes on, the job market gets more competitive. More jobs require high school diplomas or college coursework. The GED is your chance to make up lost time, earn a diploma, and get on track for success.

Employers have many questions about the GED. How does a GED compare to a high school diploma? What skills does the GED graduate possess? How do these skills interface with the job market?

The answers are surprising. A prospective employee with a GED has actually demonstrated skills higher than 40% of high school graduates–and they are the skills that employers value most.

The GED was established in 1942 and has evolved into a sophisticated set of five exams that require the candidate to demonstrate a high level of understanding and skill in mathematics, science, social studies, reading, and writing. The GED tests have gleaned the most important skills from the high school curriculum, those that will add value to any workplace: critical thinking, evaluation, making inferences, and problem solving.

Unfortunately, the standards for high school diplomas are not as clear cut. A job applicant with a high school diploma may or may not have mastered basic skills because the academic standards for high schools vary dramatically. The issue is further confused by the proliferation of fake diploma mills so that it is difficult for the employer to know if the job applicant actually attended a real high school.

With the GED there is no question of the quality of the applicant’s skills. An employer knows exactly what level of proficiency the GED graduate has achieved because the GED is a standardized test that measures a very specific set of skills and knowledge. There is no guesswork with the GED. A GED graduate has not only achieved a high degree of basic skills in essential areas such as math, reading, writing, and critical thinking, but he or she has also shown the perseverance and commitment to prepare for and complete a challenging eight-hour battery of exams.

Hiring a GED graduate assures the employer that the employee is in the top 60% of high school graduates in the skill areas that matter most.

A study released by John Nuttal and the Correctional Education Association indicates that inmates who earn a GED are less likely to commit future crimes and be re-incarcerated.

Judge Mathis, star of the syndicated court show named after him, grew up in the housing projects in Detroit. He was involved in gangs. He spent time in jail. How did he pull himself out? After learning that his mother had cancer, Mathis decided it was time to change the course of his life. He was offered probation, if he entered a GED program. He didn’t stop at a GED. He went on to college and law school, and he became the youngest superior court judge ever to serve in Michigan.

Judge Mathis’s story is an exceptional one. Over one third of prison inmates, 37 percent in 2003, do not have a high school diploma or a GED. With a prison record and no diploma, few potential jobs are available for these prisoners on release. Intuitively, it seems that GED education is a positive step for both inmates and the overcrowded prison system, and a recent study supports that idea.

John Nuttall authored the study “The Effect of Earning a GED on Recidivism Rates,” which includes data on three groups of inmates in the New York State Department of Correctional Services. The study tracked inmates who earned a GED while incarcerated, inmates who already had a high school diploma or GED, and inmates who did not earn a GED while incarcerated. Inmates who earned their GED were significantly less likely to return to custody within three years. Offenders under the age of 21 who earned their GED were 14% less likely to return to prison within three years, while prisoners over 21 were 5% less likely to return to prison after earning a GED. A copy of Nuttall’s study is available here: http://essentialed.org/research.htm

“GED programs are not new in correctional facilities,” says Michael Ormsby, president of The GED Academy, a GED preparatory company. “But correctional facilities often have limited funding, and many inmates do not function well in traditional school environments.”

Ormsby is enthusiastic about the potential benefits of technology-based educational tools for correctional facility environments. “Multi-media educational software offers learners the ability to work at their own pace, appeals to multiple learning styles, and can be enjoyable and involving. Software-based GED preparation programs are also inexpensive to implement.”

The potential return on an investment of $50 to $200 per adult learner could be significant, considering the costs of re-incarcerating a prisoner. The U.S. Department of Justice reports an average cost of $24,440 a year per Federal prisoner, and in some state prison systems, the costs are even higher. Ormsby sums up the cost-versus-reward argument: “If you spend $2,000 on ten inmates’ GEDs, and then just one prisoner does not return to prison because of it, the prison system saves $20,000 for every year that prisoner would have been incarcerated.”

For more information about GED preparation programs in correctional facilities, visit: http://essentialed.org/corrections.htm