In short:

My 16 year-old son has failed most of his high school classes because he didn't do his homework. Over the last few months he has been doing his work; I believe he is finally beginning to come around. He is a junior and has been told that, even with summer school, he will have to stay in school at least another year to graduate; perhaps longer.

Yes, there are support and custody orders, he lives with his mother most of the time. No, this has nothing to do with support or custody; I'm not planning any custody battles at this point and I will be paying support until he is 18 regardless. I'm concerned about his future.

Believe it or not, he wants to go to college. We've talked about the local community college before transferring to a state college. He's pretty smart and his test scores are all A's, but he's been lazy and unmotivated. My thought was for him to take his GED this summer, drop out of high school, and enroll in the community college in the fall. I'm still looking into the legality of this method. He would be paying for college, so I think he'll be inclined to pass rather than pay more to re-take failed classes.

Ok, that wasn't that short...

My real question is, given the circumstances, is a high school diploma any better than a GED these days? We are not talking about someone who is going to Yale/Princeton/etc. or being a CEO/doctor/president. His biggest aspiration is to design/program video games. I think he needs to get out of the K-12 "no child left behind" garbage ASAP.

What's your opinion?