The four-year graduation rate for Minnesota’s class of 2024 is the highest to date at 84.2 percent, according to newly released data from the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE). Yet, the class of 2024 has the lowest math and reading proficiency results among graduation cohorts with a reported graduation rate. (The class of 2025’s math and reading proficiency is even lower, but their graduation rate won’t be released until next spring.)
The graduation data show rates increased among American Indian, Asian, black, Hispanic, and white student groups and also among English learners, students from low-income families, and students receiving special education services.
But notably absent from MDE’s news release was any mention of high school academic achievement.
While high school graduation is an important milestone, there is concern that too many students are being sent out of the system with a piece of paper and deficient skills.
It’s a tale of two stats: a fairly constant four-year graduation rate — now the highest on record — and academic proficiency that has been stagnant or in decline.
Minnesota High School Proficiency & Four-Year Graduation Rate
Because high school students take the reading Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCA) in 10th grade and the math MCA in 11th grade, we don’t know exactly how well schools have prepared them academically upon graduation. We can, though, get a sense of their literacy and numeracy skills based on assessment results in previous years. As 11th graders, 35.9 percent of the class of 2024 met grade-level math standards. As 10th graders, around 55 percent (54.9 percent) met grade-level reading standards.
Minnesota used to require a high school exit exam but no longer does. In 2013, the DFL-controlled legislature removed the Graduation Required Assessment for Diploma (GRAD), which required specific reading and math scores in order to receive a high school diploma.
Minnesota High School Proficiency & Four-Year Graduation Rate
Average English, math, science, and composite ACT scores among Minnesota’s class of 2024 are the lowest they have been in at least a decade. Just over a quarter (26 percent) of Minnesota exam-takers met all four college-readiness benchmarks in math, reading, English, and science, also the lowest percentage in at least a decade. Perhaps more concerning is that 35 percent met zero of the benchmarks.
According to ACT, the nonprofit organization that administers the exam, students who meet the college readiness benchmarks “have a roughly 50% chance of earning a B or better in the corresponding first-year college courses and a roughly 75% chance of earning a C or better.”
ACT data from prior graduating classes shows that 84% of students who have met all four benchmarks graduate with postsecondary degrees within six years. Only 38% of students who meet zero benchmarks and 56% of students meeting one benchmark graduate in that time.
A September 2024 report by ACT Research found that grade inflation continues to drive high school grades up, making student GPAs less predictive of student success in college.
The findings reveal that the predictive power of high school grade point average changed significantly after 2020, suggesting that students entering college after the pandemic might be underprepared for their academic journey as indicated by their lower predicted first-year grade point average.
In contrast, ACT composite scores “continue to be a reliable predictor of students’ early success in college,” according to the report.
Minnesota state law does not require students to take a college entrance exam as a high school graduation requirement, but it does “encourage” it.
With 46,367 Minnesota students taking the ACT in 2024, participation was similar to the last two years (47,158 in 2023 and 47,304 in 2022) and to what it was in 2014 (45,305) and 2015 (46,862).
For colleges, “using high school grade point average without a confirming alternative measure of achievement may lead them to fail to identify students who may need additional supports,” writes ACT Research. “…[C]olleges should encourage students to submit their ACT scores so that colleges can better assess the potential success of students.”