Annie walks into the transitional housing facility’s learning center determined. Hair pulled back in a scrunchie, an eight-month-old baby clawing at her knees, she answers the question of educational goals the same way so many homeless women do: “First, I’ll get my GED.” When asked how long she believes this will take, she replies with equal confidence, “About three months?” For Annie, who never attempted the exam before, it’s all fuel and fire, point A to point B ambition. For the center director, it is another client climbing aboard the familiar inclined treadmill.

Many, if not most, homeless adults need to work toward their GED. People’s Emergency Center reports that 74% of the people they serve do not have a high school diploma and that only 9% enter with a GED. And obtaining a GED is no walk in the park. Each spring, The American Council on Education, purveyors of the GED, give the exam to graduating seniors as an experiment. Of these high school graduates, 30% fail.

For people living in poverty education is often not a full-time pursuit. Welfare to work programs often pressure these adults into the first minimum wage job that comes along, forcing educational aspirations to the backburner. GED teachers report that it’s a rare student who passes all portions of her GED on the first attempt. More often, a year or more passes while students take failed portions repeatedly, as time and life allow.

Still, it’s a fight worth fighting. According to a National Center for Children in Poverty 2006 report, 82% of children whose parents have less than a high school diploma live in low-income families. With a diploma or its equivalent, that number scales back to 56%. With a few college credits that number shrinks to 24%. That parents’ low education leads to low income is not news. It is a fact understood at all levels, especially by those who have yet to reach their goal of attaining their GED.

What women like Annie don’t realize, though, is how difficult the road ahead may be. GED classes will play a crucial role, but alone, are often not enough—classes most often contain students of widely mixed ability and needs. But with the individual tutoring the facility offers Annie can get one-on-one attention. A library of GED study guides and other reading materials covering test taking strategies, writing and math concepts are at her disposal in the on-site learning center. A support system is present to cheer her on, to plan the next move if she fails a particular section, even to supply the funding for her to take her GED through a grant offered by the facility.

If she can hold steadfastly to a piece of that initial determination, as the days and weeks and months wear on, Annie and her baby may pull themselves up yet, one GED section at a time.