For years, researchers have found inequities in students’ access to and participation in advanced coursework, including Advanced Placement courses that can offer students cost-saving college credit in high school.
To assist educators seeking to close access gaps, the College Board, which runs the AP program, offers detailed data broken down by race and ethnicity, nationally and by state, over time. The nonprofit counts percentages of students who have access to five or more AP courses in school, percentages of students participating in AP courses, and mean scores of students who take AP exams.
“We only know about existing inequities in access to advanced classes and AP specifically because of transparent data,” said Kristen Hengtgen, a senior policy analyst focusing on access to advanced coursework at The Education Trust, an advocacy and research organization.
“Because the College Board has so much more granular data than most states have or states offer, it’s really important data that’s necessary for advocates, educators, education leaders, parents, and policymakers to know so we can identify barriers and implement interventions,” she added.
Here are searchable charts by state and the District of Columbia recording AP availability, participation, and performance data for the 2022-23 school year, the most recent data available.
The College Board found inequities in whether schools offer enough AP courses
In a January 2024 report, the College Board found that 79 percent of public high school students attended high schools offering at least five AP courses in the 2022-23 school year.
In that same school year, however, Native American students were significantly less likely to have five or more AP courses available in their high schools. That trend persists when looking at which racial/ethnic groups attended schools providing 10 or more AP courses, and schools providing at least one AP STEM course.
Issues of access to AP courses aren’t just limited to whether high schools offer these courses, Hengtgen said.
Students of color can be shut out of advanced coursework pipelines as early as elementary school when gifted and talented programs are sorted out. They may also be blocked from advanced math in middle school.
Researchers found gains in some groups’ participation in AP programs
A school offering multiple AP courses doesn’t automatically mean that participation is equitable.
For instance, even in racially diverse schools, many students of color are less likely identified to be in an advanced class, Hengtgen said.
That is often due to systems where students can only take AP classes through teacher recommendations, which can replicate racial biases, or through a single state standardized test score which may not fully reflect a student’s readiness for an AP course.
Over the years, the College Board has found that Hispanic students saw the biggest growth in participation in AP programs nationally since 2013 (17 percent in 2023, up from 13 percent). However, they still lag behind other groups, such as their white and Asian peers (who have 19 percent and 47 percent participation rates in 2023, respectively).
The College Board found issues in performance suggesting a need for support
The College Board found significant differences in mean AP exam scores by racial and ethnic groups. This is partly due to “substantial and enduring disparities in equitable preparation for advanced academic classes,” the nonprofit says. “Equitable academic resources and opportunities in earlier grades are critical to shifting these results.”
There may be other issues at play that affect students’ performance in AP courses and exams.
Even when students are identified for advanced classes, research has found a lot of students of color don’t feel like they belong in the classes, Hengten said. That may be because they don’t see themselves reflected in their AP teachers, the AP content, or among their peers.
