Go to jail to support the GED at BCCC | Eastern North Carolina Now

Press Release:

    The Division of Continuing Education at Beaufort County Community College is seeking volunteers who are willing to either "go to jail" or "post bond" for someone to be sent to jail to fund a scholarship program for the General Educational Development, or GED.

    As of January 2014, the cost of taking the GED more than tripled - rising to $120 from $35.

    Since the price increased, only two people have taken the exam at BCCC, according to Penelope Radcliffe, Basic Skills Assessment Retention Specialist at the college.

    The GED is the nation's most recognizable high school equivalency exam and is typically taken by people who want to further their education and become eligible to take college courses.

    Radcliffe says that the new price can be a burden for many people taking the GED, especially the unemployed or low-wage workers.

    "Young people and those without jobs simply cannot afford the increased fees," she said. "A high school diploma or high school equivalency is the doorway to a better life for many people in our service area so we want to do something to help raise funds to ease this financial burden."

    To help provide scholarships for test-takers, Radcliffe and others in BCCC's Basic Skills Program want to "send people to jail" for the morning and afternoon of Saturday, April 5, during BCCC's spring festival, Gullfest, to be held on the college campus from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

    They plan to set up a jail area on the BCCC campus as part of the festival and fill it with willing "inmates" who will make telephone calls or send text messages to their friends asking for a contribution to the GED Scholarship Fund.

    For a $5 contribution, an individual can choose someone in the community to send to an area designated as "jail." A representative from the college may arrive on that person's doorstep or telephone that morning to inform the individual that he or she has "been arrested" and either escort the individual to the jail area on the BCCC campus or ask him or her to report to jail on their own recognizance.

    The "arrested" individual will then have two options - raise or contribute a $50 "bond" and risk re-arrest or raise or contribute $100 and get out of "jail" for the rest of the day.

    Last year, 142 people obtained a GED through BCCC. Many of these were encouraged to do so before the price went up, Radcliffe said.

    The new year also brought along new rules and a more complex test. Some had taken part of the test since 2002 but had not finished, so their existing scores were not valid after January.

    If you would like to have an individual arrested, please send a check for $5 for each individual to be arrested no later than Tuesday, April 1, to the attention of Penelope Radcliffe, Beaufort County Community College, 5337 U.S. Highway 264 East, Washington, N.C. 27889. If you would like to volunteer to be arrested, contact Radcliffe by telephone at (252) 940-6325 or by email at peneloper@beaufortccc.edu.


    Beaufort County Community College is a public comprehensive community college committed to accessible and affordable quality education, effective teaching, relevant training, and lifelong learning opportunities for the people served by the College.