In October 2015, Carolyn Bland signed up for a General Educational Development program.
The classes offered by the Gainesville Community Ministry gave the unemployed single mother the chance to prepare again for the GED, a series of tests, that when passed, certifies a high school education.
Six months later, she still carries her old test papers with her, just 20 points shy of passing, as motivation.
But, even as Bland studies for her tests, the ministry is concerned that soon she won't have any new classmates.
With recently restored time limits on Florida's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, able-bodied adults through the age of 49 without dependents will only receive three months of food assistance unless they meet certain work requirements. Program organizers at the ministry worry fewer people will be able to enroll due to work obligations.
Applications for the program have steadily decreased over the past several years.
What tends to happen, said Michael Wright, executive director of Gainesville Community Ministry, is interest in the program will dramatically increase, but not the number of people enrolling. Those that do enroll may drop out once they get a job.
The desire for a GED is there, said Maria LeFave, the director of educational programs at GCM. Difficulties tend to arise because of the way job schedules are released on a weekly basis.
“They’re enticed by the need for making an income, so they take the job and then they can’t do the GED because there are no set hours that they have,” LeFave said. “We’ve had a lot of people who have dropped because of that problem."
She said she believes the decrease in enrollment is a result of the economy’s improvement.
“These are all good things for our culture, we don’t want it to be otherwise. We want people to be working,” said LeFave. “At the same time it’s sort of a dead-end situation for them, because they get a low-paying job, they don’t finish their GED, so they’re stuck there.”
The GED classroom has six plastic tables pushed together, two in each row, with at least 15 chairs. Bland’s math class has just six students.
LeFave said attendance at the evening GED class has suffered. After a day of work people are simply too tired to make it to night classes.
“The economy’s improved,” said Wright, “but this pending change may send us back the other way.”
For students like Bland, sticking with the program offers her a chance for a better life.
"I came in to get my GED, because I wanted to be off food stamps with my head up high," she said.