GED Grads in College: Building Awareness

Abstract

What do GED students do after they graduate? According to the research, many of them go on to postsecondary education, a report in Change (The GED, 1989) noted that the number of GED graduates planning some kind of postsecondary education increased from 36% in 1967 to 49.7% in 1987. By the year 2000, the American Council on Education had reported an increase to 66% (Brown, 2000). Individual studies with smaller sample sizes have shown the greatest range in the numbers of GED graduates who are seeking postsecondary education. Murnane, Willett, and Boudett (1997) reported the lowest percentage. They used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth for the years 1979-1991, and found that 33% of GED graduates had completed at least one year of college. The highest percentage, 66%, was reported by Lance (1998) who surveyed 328 GED graduates. Although this article and the others in this series focus on GED graduates in a four-year college, studies show that people who pass the GED examination continue their education in a variety of ways. According to surveys sent out to people who passed the GED exam between 1975 and 1994 in Pennsylvania, 599 people or 60.56% participated in some form of further education: 225 in technical training, 149 in two-year institutions, 50 in four-year institutions, 252 in on-the-job training, and 136 in other training, such as emergency medical technician, truck driver, and other vocations (Dean, 1996). Both Cervero (1983) and Behal (1983) found that more GED graduates attend community colleges than four-year institutions. Lance (1998) had similar findings in a survey of 328 GED graduates. Of those who were working toward college degrees, 57% were interested in getting an associate degree while 9% were planning on graduating with a bachelor's or graduate degree. The respondents not working toward a college degree were involved in other types of educational activities, such as courses for college credit, vocational/technical training programs, non-credit courses, and on-the-job training. Some of these GED graduates may have been students in your classes. In 2002, the Ohio Literacy Resource Center, with federal funding, developed the GED Scholars Initiative to support GED graduates as they pursue their postsecondary education at Kent State University. The GED Scholars Initiative serves GED graduates in a variety of ways: * referrals to resources both on and off campus * peer mentoring for incoming GED graduates * shadowing program for prospective college students * stipends and partial scholarships As a way to find out more about our GED scholars, the Ohio Literary Resource Center set a research agenda to gather quantitative and qualitative data. We obtained the quantitative data during the third week of the fall 2004 semester. We selected fields from Kent State University's student information database that contained descriptive and academic information about the 1,384 GED graduates who were enrolled between fall 2002 and fall 2004. Because we were interested in looking more carefully at students who had achieved some measure of success, we eliminated 249 records (22%) from students who had not successfully completed one semester. The remaining student records (N = 1,135) were used to create an overall demographic and academic profile of the GED graduates. We conducted a series of individual and focus group interviews. We hoped that these verbal portraits would complement the statistical analyses to provide a more complete understanding of GED students' academic needs and aspirations. Researchers collaborated to develop questions for the interviews and focus group conversations, which focused on pre-college experiences, current experiences and opinions, future plans, and advice for college-level support personnel. These data were gathered from 25 participating students in 2002-2003. …