skeptical towards the GED
Via Greg Mankiw, Heckman and Fontaine summarize research on the GED in this report. The findings shed a negative light on the GED. It’s probably one of the most important reports in a while on high school graduation and college entrance. In this post, “high school completion” means you got your diploma at the end of high school. Key points:
- People who get the GED have the same cognitive skills as high school completers, but not the same social skills.
- Getting the GED does not mean that you will earn the same or have the same life course outcomes as high school completers. GED holders look the same as people who never completed high school at all.
- The shrinking gap between black and white high graduation rates is due to the fact that studies lump black GED and diploma holders together. Turns out that there is no racial convergence once you look at high school completers only.
- A substantial chunk of black high school graduates are actually incarcerated black men who earn the GED through correspondence courses.
- Once you remove GED holders from high school graduation statistics, college enrollment figures closely match high school completion rates. E.g., dropping male high school completion rates correlate tightly with shifting M/F college enrollment ratios.
- Taking into account immigrants who need American diplomas doesn’t change this picture.
In other words, GED’s usually don’t help people move up and they seriously distort our national statistics. With a few exceptions, GED’s go to people who don’t have the behavioral discipline to complete formal schooling. Because of these distortions, many erroneously believe that high school graduation has improved since the 1960s and that’s not true. Score a point for the “school as signal” side of the argument. Very sobering stuff. Definitely worth the read.
This is an important issue and I mostly agree, but in my opinion. It is good that the G.E.D. exists. People should have a second chance. Dropouts should have a way to prove that they are literate. That said, the G.E.D. should be counted, by the census and everyone who collects data, as something different than high school graduation. Students that might be headed towards dropping out should be made aware that G.E.D. recipients aren’t paid as well.
As for the signaling argument, I would never deny that signaling is part of the motivation for getting an education, but people do learn important skills too.
Michael Bishop
May 17, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Important also in terms of Bowles and Gintis’ argument of a host of “non-cognitive” returns to education. If GED holders are precisely those people who are getting the “education” but who don’t have those non-cognitive characteristics (lumped here under social skills) that employers are looking for and that usually are signaled by education, then that would explain why they don’t do any better than non-high school grads.
Omar
May 17, 2008 at 11:17 pm