A study was conducted to investigate the impact of basic education on the lives of adult welfare recipients who were required to return to school as part of their participation in a Family Support Act (FSA) comprehensive welfare reform program and to describe the tensions that developed in a welfare reform program that mandated collaboration between educators and social welfare professionals. The investigator participated for 9 months in the daily activities of an educational center created cooperatively by social service agencies, a local private industry council, and a community college. In addition, in-depth interviews were conducted with and questionnaires distributed to program participants and staff. Results of the study indicated the following: (1) education, specifically earning a General Educational Development (GED) diploma, was the primary goal for a majority of the new adult learners; (2) most students recognized that obtaining a GED was crucial for future employment; (3) most of the center's adult learners were more immediately concerned with casting off the stigma of being a dropout than with acquiring skills needed to seek employment; (4) although preparing adults for employment was one of the goals of the center, there was tension regarding the best way to accomplish that; and (5) while center staff and most policy makers felt that the center should be concerned initially with serving the developmental and educational needs of participants, some representatives of local branches of the state social welfare agency felt that job placement should be emphasized. Contains 15 notes related to text; some are references. (MAB)