Paul Salopek: A GED Success Story

In America, 39 million adults have no high school diploma. The GED offers a second chance to high school drop-outs. But how far can you go in life with a GED? Take a look at Paul Salopek, a journalist who has won two Pulizer Prizes as a foreign correspondent.

Paul Salopek was born in Barstow, California in 1962. He dropped out of high school, and he took the GED to earn his high school equivalency. He didn't stop there. While working as a fisherman and farm worker, Salopek earned a degree in environmental biology from UC Santa Barbara, graduating in 1984. When his motorcycle broke down in New Mexico a year later, he took a job at a local newspaper to earn money to repair his bike. It was the beginning of a career.

Salopek has worked for National Geographic and Texas's El Paso Times. Currently he is a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, writing about Africa, Central Asia, and the Balkans. In 1998, he won a Pulizer Prize for writing about the Human Genome Diversity Project, and in 2001, he won another for his writing about Africa, including the civil war in Congo. He has written about over 50 countries throughout the world. In 2006, Salopek was held in prison for five weeks in Darfur, one of the many conflict zones he's traveled to as a writer.

Salopek is the recipient of the 2009 Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award for courageous journalism. As part of the award, he received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Colby College in Waterville, Maine.

Paul Salopek took his GED and went to the ends of the earth with it. That's what the GED is for. It opens doors for adults who need more opportunity, for better jobs, higher education, and personal fulfillment. Each GED earned represents the potential for achieving a dream.