GED and Other Noncredit Courses: The Other Side of the Community College Andrew J. Ryder, Linda Serra Hagedorn While the vast amount of research on the topic of American community colleges is limited to those students enrolled in credit-bearing courses, it must be stressed that approximately 40 percent (headcount) of commu- nity colleges are enrolled in noncredit programs (American Association of Community Colleges, 2011). The National Center for Education Statistics Report on Occupational Programs (2001) reported that 41 percent of less- than-four-year institutions offered at least one occupational program on a noncredit basis. Perhaps surprisingly, a major proportion of the workforce develop- ment performed by the community college is done through the noncredit sector. In fact, community colleges actively contributed to economic revitalization of the 1980s by attracting businesses to invest in contract training through noncredit instruction (Jacobs and Dougherty, 2006). Currently, some states are beginning to recognize noncredit workplace training and even providing some reimbursement (Phillippe and Sullivan, 2005). However ubiquitous noncredit may be, noncredit students remain the neglected sector of the community college mission, which is usually described as having these components: transfer, vocational, general educa- tion, and noncredit community outreach (emphasis added; Breneman and Nelson 1981; Labaree 1997). Some would add “remedial” as another important component of the mission. In fact, The National Profile of Com- munity Colleges (Phillippe and Sullivan, 2005) does not even include This chapter examines the involvement of the community college in the GED process as well as the academic outcomes for high school dropouts who have enrolled in the program. Using Iowa as an example, the chapter examines the available data and derives important policies for GED in specific and other noncredit coursework in general. 21 NEW DIRECTIONS FOR INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH, no. 153, Spring 2012 © Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/ir.20004 3