Meridian Community College host luncheon for the MiBest Iniative program.

For years Meridian Community College has partnered with the MiBest Initiative - a program designed to target primarily high school dropouts, and other non-traditional students and accelerates their transition from basic skills education to postsecondary programs of study.

The college honored a group of students working towards their GED in addition to the faculty members that are helping those students during a luncheon that acknowledges those that have put in hard work past and present.

“Most of the students that come into our program most of the time are underemployed or working jobs that’s making it hard for them to be able to live a fulfilled life, and a lot of our students we find through the adult program that are interested in coming back to school but they didn't know about our programs, so we recruit from an adult ed program to be able to get that high school equivalency and also one of our certificates or associate degrees.”

According to project coordinator Laureta Chisolm, this semester the adult education program has enrolled 14 students and has had over 84 students enrolled at once since the program launched three years ago.

“This program is impacting lives because they have a dual enrollment with our adult ed program which allows them to take what was previously the GED, now which is called the high school equivalency exam and also have enrollment in the college, so it’s a dual enrollment program.”

Chisolm adds that it is never too late to start now in working towards the high school equivalency diploma.

“Most of our students are underemployed or working jobs that are making it hard for them to be able to live a fulfilled life, and a lot of our students we find through the adult program that are interested in coming back to school, but they didn't know about our program, so we recruit from adult ed program to be able to get that high school equivalency and also one of our certificates for associate degrees.”