ELKHART, Ind. — Donna Sharp made a good living even without a high school diploma, earning about $19 an hour putting stripes on recreational vehicles in a northern Indiana county known as the RV capital of the world.
Then Monaco Coach Corp. announced in July that it was closing the Wakarusa plant where Sharp worked, as well as plants in Elkhart and Nappanee in September. Other RV companies were doing the same, contributing to an estimated 8,000 job cuts that have caused Elkhart County’s unemployment rate to triple in a year to 15.3 percent.
In that bleak market, Sharp, 44, found that her lack of a diploma limited her prospects. So she scrapped her job search to sign up for classes to earn General Education Development credentials, joining a nationwide crush that is creating lengthy backlogs for people desperate to acquire tools to help them find work.
“We’ve never had waiting lists like this, ever,” said Deborah Weaver, director of community education for Elkhart Community Schools.
David C. Harvey, president of ProLiteracy, a nonprofit literacy organization with 1,200 affiliates, said agencies that help people study for GEDs and other adult education classes are being deluged at a time when many are facing cuts in state funding and dwindling donations.
“This is quickly becoming a national crisis,” he said. “Our programs have gotten hit with less resources, but in turn they have a huge increase in demand for services that they can’t meet.”
Weaver has seen that demand in Elkhart, where the school system in past years ran a monthly orientation to enroll people for GED classes. She stopped holding orientations in August because all available slots were filled and more than 100 people were on the waiting list, even though she had added three classes.
