Adult learners seeking to earn a high school equivalency (HSE), like the general education development (GED), must often overcome major difficulties to persist (Comings, 2007) and succeed academically (Hansman & Mott, 2010). Adult learners might require hundreds of hours of training in GED programs to make up for early departure in high school…

In response to the educational and workforce challenges facing young adults without high school diplomas, Ohio House Bill 33 authorized the creation of the 18+ Pilot Adult High School Diploma Program. Backed by a $2.5 million appropriation, HB33 established this initiative to operate during Fiscal Years 2024 and 2025, offering a flexible,…

One of the most worrying issues in Spanish education is the high school dropout rate, especially for those students who leave compulsory secondary education with no qualifications. Some of these students re-enter the system via adult education centres (AECs), where they can obtain the minimum qualification required by the labour market (the…

The purpose of this qualitative narrative inquiry was to capture how graduates of adult high school diploma and equivalency programs in California told their story of persisting in the completion of a high school diploma or equivalency certificate. The four types of motivation regulation involved in organismic integration theory were used as the…

The aim of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore the cognitive, noncognitive, and sociodemographic barriers affecting the enrollment of General Educational Development (GED) holders in higher education in Alabama. The researcher sought to understand these barriers, focusing on poor academic performance, negative emotions,…

In 2016, the GED® introduced college readiness benchmarks designed to identify testers who are academically prepared for credit-bearing college coursework. The benchmarks are promoted as awarding college credits or exempting "college-ready" GED® graduates from remedial coursework. I show descriptive evidence that those identified as…

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore through platica (conversation), the life experiences of Latinx students who prepared for and completed the High School Equivalency Test (HiSET) to critically understand both the risk and protective factors related to their ability to persist until the completion of their certificate.…

Adult education programs play a pivotal role in closing skills gaps, strengthening the workforce, and bolstering the U.S. economy. Persistence in this type of programming can influence educational and long-term employment outcomes. At the same time, persistence itself can be influenced by a multitude of individual and contextual factors. Adult…

The purpose of this non-experimental quantitative study was to investigate the relationship between learned helplessness and academic baseline levels among adult students who dropped out of high school and have returned to a high school equivalency program to prepare to take the GED examination. The study controlled for the variables of the age of…

Although persisters now represent the largest group of non-graduating high school students, they have received little attention in the research literature, leaving unanswered the question of how persisters differ from dropouts in terms of demographic characteristics, academic preparation, and key life outcomes. Using statewide…

The topic for the study was the attitudes and perceptions of students with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia toward using assistive technologies (AT) to pass a general educational development test (GED) successfully on the first attempt. The research question was What are the attitudes and perceptions of students with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and…

More than 24,000 U.S. high school students drop out each year, contributing to the approximate 1.1 million U.S. adults who have not earned the high school diploma or General Education Development. This failure in educational attainment contributes significantly to the lack of economic and workforce development opportunities as well as the standard…

Self-control and persistence may predict employment outcomes among individuals who have no credential, a General Educational Development (GED) credential, or a high school diploma. However, less is known about the stability of that relation after accounting for structural factors (e.g., social relationships) and differences in lived experience…

Since the General Educational Development (GED) Program was established in 1943, more than 17 million people have received a GED Credential. According to the American Council on Education (ACOE), the GED test is considered an alternative option to the US High school diploma, HiSET and TASC tests; the GED test verifies whether the test taker has…

This paper studies the effectiveness of individual federal income tax credits and deductions that are made available to college students and their families who satisfy income and certain other eligibility requirements. Such credits and deductions are collectively called "tax-based aid." Tax-based aid is found here to have a limited…