Whatever participants’ self-perceived flaws, practitioners and peers accept them as valuable individuals and provide socialization as well as instruction and support. Teachers and tutors suggest alternative learning strategies and assure participants’ they can accomplish their goals. Help is available. As participants succeed, what was once thought impossible becomes a comfortable reality. New students turn to them for assurance, advice and assistance. They reach out to help others. As role models, participants have reached the first step on a leadership ladder. Confidence in their new-found abilities grows. They discard old myths, begin to build positive self-images, question previous goals and open themselves to new possibilities. Leadership begets recognition. Success supplies satisfaction. Education offers opportunity. And nothing is ever the same again.

Participant Life Style Outcomes:

1. “The GED is a beginning not an end.”

With new attitudes toward life and new credentials, participants discuss their surprise and delight at being propelled into new “adventures” in careers and in community affairs. Despite the extent of their achievements after ABLE completion, successful adult learners regard the GED as the turning point in their lives. It was the first goal they set for themselves. It provided their first taste of success. From then on, they set out to reshape their lives in accordance with their dreams.

These dreams are not new to the American scene — the security of a home for their families and steady employment at more than minimum wage so their children will have the chance for “a better life” than they had experienced. With fulfillment of these dreams came satisfaction and a desire to “pay back” by helping others in their families, their schools, and their communities.

After ABLE program completion, 79 percent of participants engaged in formal or informal education or training. Informal education ranged from attending literacy conferences to computer and driver’s education courses. Several participants selected continuing education as a less expensive, less time-consuming alternative to higher education.

Forty percent of the study sample enrolled in college and 20 percent completed a higher education degree. Ninety-three percent of higher education graduates entered college immediately after getting their GEDs. Half of all participants who enrolled in college but did not earn degrees are still taking credit after credit as time and money permit. Participants with learning differences and participants with funding difficulties may take ten years or more to complete college degrees. An interlocking web of obstacles including health, employment, family and finances compete for control of the participant’s world which explains why so few GED graduates complete college degrees. All participants who earned degrees received financial assistance in the form of pensions, scholarships or internships or they belonged to families with two incomes.

The Impact Survey reveals a dramatic drop (from 30 percent to three percent) in Welfare and Food Stamp usage after ABLE participation. A corresponding employment pattern suggests that working participants left part-time or minimum wage jobs to engage in ABLE programs with a subsequent 20 percent increase in salaried employment after program completion. Of 23 participants receiving public assistance prior to ABLE participation, 18 (78 percent) are now self-sufficient. Of these 18 former welfare recipients, eleven (61 percent) attended college. Of the 11 individuals who enrolled in college, four are still taking courses and four completed doctoral, masters, bachelors or associate degrees.