Higher Education Credentials, Higher Skills, and Lost Purchasing Power: A Dilemma for Workforce Development Policy and Practice

Not long ago the thinking in the Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS) of the United States was that adults with literacy skills below the high school level and who lacked a high school diploma could enter into ABE (adult basic education), learn enough to work up to ASE (adult secondary education), and then study hard to get a high school diploma or General Educational Development (GED) certificate. That was the end of the education provision in the AELS. In effect, this sequence of ABE to ASE to "graduation" was meant to replicate the K-12 system of the public schools for children. In ABE the adults got primary school and middle school education (completion of the 8th grade) then in ASE they got secondary (high) school education (9th to 12th grades) and then they graduated from high school or its "equivalent " in the case of the GED. In the last few years this view of the AELS has changed. In many programs it is no longer considered sufficient for the AELS to provide a K-12 "equivalency " education and provide a high school diploma or GED certificate. Instead, many are calling for the AELS to provide a college preparatory education so that AELS students can get their HS diploma or GED and then qualify for and transition into college, and acquire a two- or four-yea