Students who drop out early from high school may have an opportunity to receive something more than a general equivalency certificate, according to a bill introduced in the Mississippi Legislature.
House Bill 1423 would allow, but not require, a high school to award a diploma if the student had achieved the certificate, considered equivalent to high school requirements, and later achieved the requirements for high school graduation that were in place at the time that the student would have graduated.
One thing the bill might achieve is an end to the discrimination that GED recipients experience.
Professor of counselor education and educational psychology Joe Ray Underwood said the test was initially intended for people who had dropped out of school at some point and decided to come back.
“They would be unable to find employment because they did not have a high school degree. This was to be an equivalency type thing,” Underwood said.
Though the educational test meets high school standards-or higher standards, some say-many graduates tend to look down on former classmates who receive GEDs.
Professor Paul Grimes, head of finance and economics, said he thinks the discrimination among GED students extends even further, including into the workplace.
“There has been economic research on how well workers with GEDs versus workers with high school diplomas perform,” Grimes said, “and on some studies I’ve looked at, it shows the workers with GEDs do bear a penalty in the marketplace.”
Grimes said the penalty mentioned in the study reflects a negativity associated with the term GED itself, not the test’s ability to gauge competence.
Senior broadcasting major Nicole Dees said the bias toward GEDs in general starts in high school.
“In high school, a GED is frowned upon. But when you get into college you realize everyone is equal in trying for a college degree,” Dees said.
Dees said she thinks the bill shouldn’t be necessary since colleges accept students with either a diploma or a certificate.
“If they can get into college without a high school diploma, I don’t see why they need the bill,” Dees said. “It sounds frivolous to me.”
Mississippi State’s policy states that students may use their GED for admission purposes; however, an ACT or SAT score is required for freshmen attending the institution.
“We don’t admit very many folks with a GED. We almost treat them as special cases because they’re so few,” admissions and scholarships director Philip Bonfanti said.
“The reason we get so few is because the most common path for a GED recipient is to go to a community college first, not to a four-year university.”
Bonfanti added that for those who come to Mississippi State as transfer students, the GED isn’t even considered.
“Once a GED recipient has been to a community college, we treat them as a transfer student. We bring almost as many community college transfers every fall as we do freshmen,” Bonfanti said.
For the 2004-2005 school year, GED recipients made up more than 9 percent of Mississippi’s community college enrollment, according to an article in The Clarion-Ledger.
Figures for four-year institutions were not available.
Bonfanti said that the factors used to determine whether students have the potential to succeed at the college level are the same, whether they’ve finished high school or not.
“When we’re looking at admissions, we’re looking at past indicators of how you’re going to succeed here, and a GED is an indication of success.”
House Bill 1423 passed easily through the House and may be considered by the Senate this week.