The Bridge to Success

LCC Website

The GED has always been a bit controversial – we know we need it as a stepping-stone, but it hasn’t shown that it has much educational or economic benefit.

So it’s great to hear about GED programs that are producing results. MDRC’s random assignment study of the GED Bridge to College Careers Program developed by LaGuardia Community College of the City University of New York (CUNY) found that:

• Compared with students who went through the traditional GED Prep course, Bridge students were much more likely to complete the semester of classes. The first milestone for students in the GED Bridge program is class completion. Students in the GED Bridge group completed the class at a significantly higher rate than the Prep students (68 percent compared with 47 percent). 
• Bridge students were more than twice as likely to pass the GED exam as GED Prep students. Overall, 53 percent of Bridge students passed the exam within 12 months of entering the study, compared with 22 percent of Prep students. 
• GED Bridge students were more than three times as likely to enroll in CUNY as GED Prep students. Only 7 percent of GED Prep students enrolled compared with 24 percent of GED Bridge students, a difference of 17 percentage points. 

So what makes this program so special? According to the National College Transition Network (NCTN) La Guardia started with the data and discovered that “attrition was common in their GED programs, too few students were staying and earning their high school equivalency credential and, of those that did, just 35% went on to enroll in certificate, associate, or bachelor’s degree programs.”



According to NCTN, the GED Bridge program was designed to address these issues by:

• Increasing access to GED programming for a broader spectrum of adults reading at lower levels thereby serving more in need; 
• Raising class expectations and academic rigor to better prepare students for GED examination and college simultaneously; 
• Improving alignment to students’ postsecondary and employment goals, with career focused instruction; and 
• Building in transition services and coursework to create a more seamless path to postsecondary program 

So I’ve been wondering – what are the policy and innovation implications if we want to see more Bridge to College Career programs around the U.S? Two jump out at me right away:

Policy: Our funding for literacy and adult education is really low. It’s low in terms of how much current funding is provided both per student and overall; it is low in terms of meeting the need of all those who need to develop high school literacy levels. So first thing is first – I think we should have some way of structuring funding so that students entering GED programs with less than a 7th grade reading level should receive increased funding. Teens and young adults shouldn’t have to go to an adult literacy class and then to a GED program. They should be able to get into one program so they can establish the relationships that are necessary for successful youth programming and get the array of services they need.

Innovation: With all this investment into online curriculum and adaptive software programs, are we seeing CTE adaptive software that could both provide career-based instruction and also provide some career development as well. Wouldn’t that be great for all the young people out there who are struggling to complete their high school graduation requirements and are worried that they won’t be able to find a job? Perhaps it is already out there – have you heard of any?

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Do you want to know more abut the GED Bridge program? American Youth Policy Forum is holding a briefing on January 24th with Richard Murnane, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Gail Mellow, President, LaGuardia Community College, and Vanessa Martin and Elizabeth Zachry Rutschow from MDRC. The American Youth Policy Forum also does a great job at publishing a summary and videos from the briefing. Check their website in March if you want to hear the briefing.