ACT Deems More Students College-Ready

Three-quarters of the class of 2011 still fell short of the bar

The proportion of American students meeting all four of the ACT’s college-readiness benchmarks continued to rise this year, driven largely by improvements in performance on the mathematics and science portions of the exam, according to data released last week.

The annual report from ACT, issued Aug. 17, examines the scores of students in the 2011 graduating class who took that college-entrance exam at some point in high school. This year’s report shows that 25 percent of those students produced scores in English, reading, math, and science that correlate with higher chances of earning B’s or C’s in entry-level college courses. That figure has grown steadily in recent years; it was 21 percent in 2005.

Much of the growth was the result of improvements on the math and science portions of the exam. In each of those areas, the proportion of students meeting the college-readiness benchmarks has risen 2 percentage points in...