Last year, an 84-year-old Utah man took and passed the GED exam. He wasn't able to graduate from high school because he left for World War II before he got the chance.

"[He] wanted to finally get his GED to kind of wrap up his life," said Murray Meszaros, the state GED testing administrator.

The General Educational Development exam tests high school-level knowledge of math, science, social studies and language arts. As the economy slows, like is predicted to happen this year by the Utah Department of Workforce Services, it is possible that the number of students seeking a GED will increase. In a booming economy jobs, are plentiful and competition is lower. As the unemployment rate increases, competition will get stiffer and more people will be jobless, and education is the key to a better job.

Kip Bromley, Alpine School District adult education coordinator, said in his 20 years of experience that when unemployment goes up, so does the number of GED tests. That shift doesn't have GED officials too worried.

"If we had a sudden bulge, we could accommodate," Meszaros said.

Bromley said shifts can be problematic because he receives funding based on the number of people he helps in the previous year. If there is a thin year followed by a sudden bulge, it could get tight.

Other than that, an increase in the number of GED test takers is a good thing, because it means more people are better prepared to enter the job market. Meszaros said only 15 percent of Utah's jobs are available to those without a high school diploma or equivalent.

Meszaros said the people who take the GED do it for several reasons -- some have been home schooled and need the test to get into college, some students want to leave high school early. Some just want to get the job done.

"The people who take GED are as different as the people who walk the streets of the state of Utah," Meszaros said.

He said that the most common reason was an economic one. Meszaros said the test is not an easy one, though passage is all that is required to gain a GED.

"It's not a Mickey Mouse test," Meszaros said.

He said 40 percent of high school seniors would fail it.

• Brittani Lusk can be reached at blusk@heraldextra.com.