Can You Pursue Higher Education If You Never Attended Regular School? A Teacher’s Answer
Last Tuesday, I stayed 20 minutes late after my GED prep class at the downtown community center, packing red and blue markers back into my scuffed bin and dumping out the dregs of my cold coffee. A 19-year-old named Mia hung back by the door, twisting the strap of a canvas tote printed with the local animal clinic’s logo, waiting until the other students left. When she walked up to my desk, she pulled a crumpled sticky note out of her pocket with a list of questions she’d written down, and the first one was: Can I still pursue higher education if I never actually attended high school?
Mia’s mom pulled her out of middle school after three years of relentless bullying, and never got around to registering her for homeschool or a district program. For the past six years, Mia has worked full-time for her mom’s residential cleaning business, scheduling appointments, invoicing clients, and cleaning houses four days a week. She’s wanted to be a pediatric nurse since she was 12, but she always assumed that skipping high school meant that dream was off the table.
I hear this question at least once a month, from people 18 to 50: some who dropped out to work, some who were pulled out for health or family reasons, some who never fit into the structure of traditional school. Most people who ask think the answer is no, that higher education is only for people who checked all the boxes in order. That’s not true, not even close.
I told Mia about Mike, a 27-year-old I worked with three years ago. He dropped out of 10th grade when his mom got cancer, and worked construction for 11 years to pay his mom’s medical bills and put his little sister through high school. He sat right where Mia was, saying he wanted to get a degree in construction management so he could stop doing hourly labor and start estimating projects, but he didn’t have a high school transcript, so he didn’t know where to start.
The first step Mike took was the easiest one, and the one most people don’t know they can take: he walked into the adult education office at our local community college. He didn’t have any old school records, and they didn’t ask for any. They signed him up for free prep classes for the HiSET (one of the common alternatives to a GED) and he only had to pay $50 for the test fee, which they waived for him because he qualified for low-income status. He studied for 8 months, going to class two nights a week after work, and passed on his first try.
The big myth I end up correcting almost every week is that you need a traditional high school diploma to get into college. Ninety-nine percent of US colleges accept a GED or HiSET in place of a traditional diploma, that includes community colleges, state schools, and even many private colleges. Open enrollment at community colleges means anyone with a GED can start, no SAT or ACT scores required. For people who’ve been out of school for years, that takes a huge amount of pressure off.
If you or someone you care about is in this spot, the first concrete thing to do is Google “[your county] adult education GED prep” and call the number that comes up. You don’t need any prior paperwork to sign up, and most programs are free or low-cost. Once you get your GED, start small: you don’t have to jump into a four-year program full-time right away. Take one or two general ed classes at your local community college first, to get used to the rhythm of homework and exams. Almost all community colleges have free tutoring centers open to all students, so if you struggle with algebra or structuring essays, you can go in for an hour a week for extra help, no extra fee.
Another thing most people don’t know is that many colleges give credit for work experience. Mia’s six years of scheduling, client communication, and bookkeeping for the cleaning business could count for up to three college credits in a basic business or communications class. Mike got credit for his years of on-the-job construction experience, which cut a full semester off his degree time.
It’s not easy, and I never pretend it is. Mia will have to cut her work hours back to 20 a week to make time for classes and study, which means she’ll have less income for the next few years. She’ll have to re-learn basic study skills most people pick up incrementally in high school, and she’ll probably feel out of place next to 18-year-olds who just graduated traditional high school, at least at first. Mike told me he failed his first college algebra test, and he almost quit right then. He went to the tutoring center three times a week for a month, retook the class, and passed the second time.
What I’ve noticed over the years is that many people who didn’t go to traditional high school are actually better at sticking with their degree than the average 18-year-old. They know exactly why they’re there, they don’t waste time, they’ve already learned how to manage a schedule and show up on time for work, which translates really well to school. Mia already manages a $300,000 a year business for her mom, that’s more responsibility than most college seniors have when they graduate.
Mia signed up for GED prep classes that start next month. She picked up a free prep book from the adult education office last week, and she already highlighted the first three sections on reading and math that she’s going to work through before classes start. She still says she’s scared she’s too far behind, that she’ll mess it up. I don’t tell her she’ll definitely be a nurse one day, that’s not my job. I just tell her the door isn’t closed. It’s just a different path than the one most people take, and there are clear small steps you can take to walk it, one day at a time. Right now, that’s enough for her. It might be enough for you, too.
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