I thought, as @Sam_Stone says, it wasn’t so much that finishing high school meant you had acquired more knowledge…it was more like completing it meant you had the gumption to stick it out, check off all the boxes, etc. Plenty of dropouts were smart enough to do the work and pass, but that same attitude in a job may mean cutting corners, doing things as they see fit rather than their boss, sleeping in or calling in sick regularly, etc.
And I think there’s that third category: the GED. Maybe the student tried life without a diploma and realized s/he needed one.
I was talking to a guy in April or so who was scared to death that his kid was going to fail a required course. It was the student’s senior year and he’d already signed on with the United States Navy. Like many that age, he was in the throes of various illusions…
I’m 18 and can do what I want
I did enough already; they’ll pass me!
I already signed with the USN so if my parents throw me out, so what?
Teachers were telling him that the military has changed. They can be a lot pickier now and if he screwed up and didn’t get his diploma, they’d reject him.
U.S. Navy
You can join the Navy as an enlisted member or officer. To join as an enlisted member, you must be between the ages of 17 and 34. However, if you’re only 17, your parents must consent to your joining the Navy. United States citizenship or permanent resident alien status is required. If you don’t have a high school diploma, a general equivalency diploma is acceptable. What Are the Requirements to Join the US Military? | Work - Chron.com
I knew a fellow who also did not graduate from high school and now is a high-paid Systems Analyst and Project Manager. From the questions he asked me (I have a Comp Sci & Physics degree) some of his teachers were not the brightest bulbs in the barrel, and he was extremely bored - but extremely good at computers. I think a bit of life experience as a dropout led him to learn to apply himself, and he did a term of university as a mature student which got him a job with a software company, and he kept going.
His friends who also dropped put - had the brains sufficient to remain dropouts and remain in menial jobs.
He mentioned that once he had a few years professional experience on his resume, his education level was not that relevant. Nobody asked him about it.
I think part of it is the need to show you’ve mastered the basic life skills of reading and math; and the proof that you can stick it out instead of losing interest.
Plus, I think a lot of corporations, like McDonalds, probably don’t want the reputation of being dead-end jobs for dropouts, nor do these companies want the reputation that they lure the marginal students out of school to make actual spending money. (Much as school sports demand that a student keep up their academics) I know McDonalds has a strong emphasis on encouraging the education of their younger employees, particularly for this reason - plus the smart ones who do work there may go on to become managers and further up the corporate ladder. (Front line may be low paid, but jobs with real responsibility can be quite well paying).
The joke when I was going to high school was that to be a ditch digger or garbageman, you needed high school. For the same reason as McDonalds, the city was not going to hire dropouts since they did not want the accusation they were luring people away from school.
I teach GED classes for (mostly) adult high school dropouts. Here’s my thoughts:
First, I take the OP’s question to mean “what employment-specific real-world skills does a high school education give someone that they would otherwise not have if they had dropped out?” The answer is, basically, “none, with a few caveats.” Naturally, someone who completed high school will have some level (depending on when they dropped out, of course) of math and reading skills that a dropout would not. They might have some vocational training if they took wood or metal shop or similar electives. These skills might give them a leg up in a job search. For instance, a kid who took a couple of years of basic welding might be able to land a job as an entry-level welder in a fabrication or machine shop, a job that they otherwise would not be qualified for. But a dropout might very well have the taken the same classes (usually offered sophomore and junior years) before dropping out – a vast majority of high school dropouts drop out at the end of their junior year or the beginning of their senior year.
Because of this high school has become something of a litmus test: does candidate x have the requisite fortitude to handle deadlines, take direction from superiors, work in groups, manage time, organize projects and work loads, and deal with unpleasant or onerous tasks? If they completed high school then usually the answer is yes. In other words, a crucial aspect of high school education is learning soft skills. A dropout cannot prove that they have those skills. Thus the HS grad who took two years of welding would likely have a better shot at landing that fabrication job than the dropout with the same welding skills but no way to show they have the soft skills to be employable.
Now, as others have noted, the GED is supposed to be an equivalency test – it assesses a student’s skills in the 4 core subject areas and, if they have the senior-equivalent knowledge, then they’re awarded their credentials. However, many employers do not view the GED as an equivalent assessment because, as noted, there is no way to prove soft skills.
My thought on this are mixed. Because the GED has such a stigma a HS diploma is vastly preferable when searching for a job. However, it’s quite easy for many students to graduate from high school without having to actually take high school level classes. Students with an IEP are often exempt from testing requirements or have significant accommodations that make standardized test… well, no longer standard. There are also things like modified diplomas or worse: the State of Washington, for instance, has (or had, I think this has been supplanted with something else) some ridiculous thing called a “Certificate of Individual Achievement” that was functionally a high school diploma but had greatly reduced credit and proficiency requirements to earn one vs. a standard HS diploma. While these have their place I feel they are greatly abused and many – maybe a majority – of students who graduate with a modified diploma did so out of laziness or similar reasons unrelated to actual academic ability.
A GED has none of these variables. The test is identical in every state and cannot be modified or altered in any way, there are almost no accommodations available, the questions pertain to real-world examples and situations, and the testing process itself is quite regimented and rigorous. There’s no way to BS your way through a GED. Additionally, a GED is something that someone has to seek out and actually complete on their own volition. They have to want it and they have to go through the rigors of testing (remember, it’s 4 separate tests, each independent of the other) without any assistance or modifications.
So if I was someone on a hiring committee and I had two applicants in front of me, both, say, in their early 20’s and no real world work experience, and one was a high school graduate and the other was dropout who later earned their GED, and all else being equal, I would be tempted to give the GED candidate a chance because they have proven themselves more recently to have made a plan and followed through with it despite it almost assuredly being time consuming, difficult, and frustrating. But I’m aware my own perception on this issue is biased.
Having said all that (and I have no idea if I even addressed the OP), the only career that I know of where the HS diploma is codified as preferable over the GED is the military. Each branch sets it own requirements but the USMC, for instance, only allows 10% of enlistees to hold a GED and those individuals have to have significantly higher AFQT test scores than a HS grad.
To top it off, both a GED and HS diploma meet the high school education requirements for college admissions at every public community college or university in the country. Once someone earns a college degree – in any concentration, at any school (assuming its accredited), their GED or HS graduation status becomes a moot point. Once you’re a college grad nobody cares what you did in high school.
I teach in a boarding school and we do occasionally get the odd student who has completed high school or earned a GED. If this is the case we need copies of their transcripts. In most states on the west coast anyway HS transcripts, unlike college transcripts, are usually faxed. We have to fill out a requisition form, fax it to the state, and wait a day or three for a student’s transcripts to be faxed. The state of Washington, for whatever arcane reason, will only send paper copies – we literally have to wait for the mail each day when we request transcripts from Olympia. I’m not aware of a process (in Oregon, at least) for e-copies to be sent.
This has been the case with the IBEW for at least two decades. I actually inquired about an electrical apprenticeship ca. 2000 and there was a requirement for either a) having completed high school or b) having successfully completed a college intermediate algebra course.
I am a high school dropout. I earned a GED when I was 17 and then returned to school when I was 29. I now have two AA’s, a BS, and an MS. Of all of those credentials, I am most proud of my GED.
A few years ago I took a couple of continuing education courses at a college. In neither case did they ever ask for any proof of education. (I have a university transcript readily available if they wanted.) To be fair, these were first level courses, but logically would require a high school education to take them.
My current job requires high school, but every single person who got the job in the last decade or so had a college diploma or university degree.
While I’ve never been in the position of having to hire HS-level candidates, this too would be my inclination. A GED student has proven they want to get the degree, and will go out of their way to complete one even though they have to get on with all the rest of life - while a high school student (usually) had the luxury of living at home and devoting their full time to their studies. GED denotes a higher level of motivation - they have recognized the need and found a way to fulfill it.
When evaluating potential employees I cared a lot less about their transcripts and a lot more about what they did when they weren’t in school.
For instance, when choosing a software engineer, I might have a candidate who went to a good school and got a degree in Computer Engineering, but their hobbies are ‘going for walks, riding my bike, movies, sports’. Another candidate has a less impressive academic transcript, but for hobbies contributes to open-source projects, builds things in his garage, works on software projects at home or with friends, competed in programming competitions in school, etc… The second candidate is going to win every time, even if the first person went to MIT with a 3.8 average and the second to a local college.
I’ve found academics to be decreasing in value over the years, due to the declining quality of education. Give me a highly motivated, interesting person with a weak degree rather than one who checked all the boxes for a premium education but shows little interest in the field and little curiosity about the world. The former person will be more engaged and more willing to learn, and likely be a happier employee.
It’s worth noting that a number of large organizations like Google and GE and others have dropped degree requirements for many positions that used to require them. Google doesn’t even require a comp sci degree for programmers any more. They found that the degree didn’t guarantee much and there were lots of very capable people around who don’t have them.
This trend is going to continue as colleges get worse. And they are getting worse.
Yes, it’s my observation that the last few decades, there has evolved a symbiosis between American colleges and banks - where colleges are less about educating students, and more about driving up business to college loans that results in more tuition money.
I would agree with your premise depending on what extracurricular activities were being considered.
I was one of the students who was much smaller than my peers, and with less money available to buy sports equipment - so I didn’t participate in sports, for example. As a more reclusive type, I didn’t engage in things that involved group activities. My non-academic resume would have looked pretty sparse, despite a deep interest in computers.
When i was in college, a lot of the arts students settled on teaching as a career. To get consideration from the Catholic school boards, the Catholic students needed a letter from their parish priest. (many Canadian provinces have a separate public Catholic school system). So students who had normally skipped church for a decade were suddenly going to Sunday mass and volunteering for things like Boy Scout leader just to score brownie points with their local parish priest. Their resume would not have reflected their true character.
The short answer is, you can’t judge a book by its cover, but sometimes the cover is all you have to go on.
Agreed. A shorter version of my post would be that I would look for curious people with intelligence and a commitment to lifelong learning. Show me that you actually care about the field you are going into, and that you are the kind of person whose idea of learning isn’t a four year degree and nothing else after. Because frankly, if all you know is what you learned in school, you are poorly educated.
I once had a candidate with a good education admit that he hadn’t read a single book, technical or otherwise, that wasn’t assigned to him in college, and still hadn’t a decade later. I guess he thought it was some kind of mark of independence or something. He did not get the iob.