More Dropouts Turning to GED
With the economy demanding a more educated work force, more dropouts are obtaining GED high school equivalency diplomas, according to a survey released Monday by the testing program.
The half-million GED recipients in 1999 remain, however, a tiny fraction of the more than 45 million Americans who never finished high school. About one in seven high school diplomas issued each year is a General Educational Development certificate.
Last year, 506,155 adults in the United States and affiliated islands such as Puerto Rico and Guam received a GED, according to the GED Testing Service. That figure was a slight rise, 4%, from 1998, when 490,833 adults passed.
The nonprofit GED service is run by the American Council on Education, a consortium of 1,800 higher education institutions, organizations and companies that is based in Washington, D.C.
The average adult test-taker last year was 24.6 years old.
On the Net: https://www.ged test.org/.
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