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/.