The U.S. has a lot of people who do not get a high school diploma. This can lead to significant barriers in employment and future opportunities in college. As a result, in 2013, over 500,000 people took and passed a high school equivalency exam (GED). This was a 20% increase over 2012. The Bureau of Labor Statistics accepts a diploma and GED as being the same. But, should employers?
The idea behind the GED is that some people are unable to complete high school for a variety of reasons and by passing the test they show that they have acquired the same amount of knowledge. That may be true, but there is little high school knowledge, except perhaps some math, that employers find valuable. What is valuable is the skill of being able to navigate something for 4 years. But, you don’t have to take my word for it. This report outlines in detail that the career and economic trajectories for those with a GED more closely resemble high school dropouts without a GED than those who complete high school. From a public policy perspective, this leads me to believe that that the proponents of the test are selling snake oil.
Employers should strongly consider this in their applications. Why? Because there may be economic consequences of treating a GED and a high school diploma the same way. In working with a client to validate ways to help them reduce turnover, we looked at the retention rates by education level for entry level positions. What we found was that after 12 months, the retention rate of those with a high school diploma compared to those with a GED 80% vs 65%. After 24 months the retention rates were 68% vs 50%. At a hiring rate of about 1000 per year and a cost of hire a bit more than $5k per person, these are significant differences. After checking with some colleagues, these results are not unusual.
The overall picture shows that employers should not be treating those with GEDs like those with high school diplomas. Rather, you should validate the impact of education level against turnover or performance as evaluate it accordingly in your application, biodata, or training and experience scoring process.