Dropout Recovery Funds 101

February 16th, 2012

Previous posts have focused on the budget requests for Mississippi’s universities and colleges. MEPC is keeping a particularly close eye on the college’s request for Dropout Recovery Funds for the state’s Adult Basic Education (ABE) and GED programs and shares its perspective in a recent Letter to the Editor in the Sun Herald.

ABE and GED programs provide courses with instruction on basic math and literacy skills and advance adults to a GED and high school equivalency. In Mississippi over 350,000 working-age adults lack a high school diploma.

Simply put, increasing the appropriation for Dropout Recovery Funds provides an avenue to enhance the state’s basic skills instruction and move more adults to high school equivalency. Reaching high school equivalency is an important first step for thousands of Mississippi workers because of the close relationship between employment stability, earnings and educational attainment.

However, bolstering ABE/GED programs also needs to include an added emphasis on college-readiness.

Here is why: In 2010, the unemployment rate for Mississippi adults without a high school degree (20.2%) was more than double that of adults who had taken at least some college courses (9.6%). Educational attainment also raises potential earnings for Mississippi workers. In 2010, median wages for workers with some college or an associate’s degree ($28,255) were $11,848 more than adults without a high school degree.

See MEPC’s recently released fact sheet with recommendations for using Dropout Recovery Funds to advance job skills and transitions to college-level courses here.

Recommendations for advancing more low-skilled adults to college-readiness include:

Increasing the Dropout Recovery appropriation in FY 2013 beyond the previous appropriation of $100,000 per college.
Using Dropout Recovery Funds to strengthen comprehensive wrap around support services for adults in ABE/GED courses.
Allocating a portion of Dropout Recovery Funds to hire staff charged with increasing ABE student success and transitions to college.
Enhancing ABE curriculums so courses are imbedded with job skills and introductory content from career tech programs.

Author: Sarah Welker, Policy Analyst