I found more equally unusual stories when I searched beyond the Achievement Academy. A friend introduced me to a homeless man who had become a friend of her family. Although he had been living in a shelter for most of the time since he completed a prison term for felony car theft, he had been getting calls on his government-issued Lifeline cell phone for years by lead generators. He never signed up, because he wisely realized that he could not afford it.
“Every time you ask how the schooling is going to be paid for, they never get to the interest rate until you are so deep into their hole. I get off the phone. They are talking about a couple of thousand dollars.”
The life of GED graduate can stray far from the experience of a “typical” student coming from the comfort of a middle-class background. Each is delegate to a caucus of difficulties.
“The GED student lives in the land of the outliers,” says Erdheim. “Jaqueta and the others are as typical as anyone else.”
To see examples of success, I went to a portfolio viewing for new graduates of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. Graduates at the Art Institute of Raleigh-Durham seem a world apart. In the ballroom of the Durham Marriott, about 30 students displayed their graduation portfolios. The work was impressive. Some of students, most notably those in video game design, presented complicated work that would justify a high salary. But while it is evident that some students do achieve great things, the tragic combination of low graduation rates and high rates of student loan default remains omnipresent. Success is great. Failing is disastrous.