Average English, math, reading, science, and composite American College Test (ACT) scores among Minnesota’s high school graduating class of 2024 have dropped again. Average English, math, science, and composite scores 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 [percent] chance of earning a B or better in the corresponding first-year college courses and a roughly 75 [percent] chance of earning a C or better.”
ACT data from prior graduating classes shows that 84 [percent] of students who have met all four benchmarks graduate with postsecondary degrees within six years. Only 38 [percent] of students who meet zero benchmarks and 56 [percent] of students meeting one benchmark graduate in that time.
Graduation rates in the state have ticked up, despite reading and math proficiency declines. A research paper from the Equitable Grading Project published earlier this year compared around 33,000 grades from the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 school years with performance on standardized assessments and found that nearly 60 percent of grades “did not match the standardized test scores designed to measure students’ content knowledge of those courses.” Two-thirds of the inaccurate grades were inflated, according to the paper.
A new report by ACT Research has 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,” continues 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 test, 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.”
An article by Emma Camp with the Reason Foundation points out that while some “influential and selective colleges — such as Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, MIT, and Caltech — have reinstated standardized testing requirements…the heavy majority of U.S. colleges and universities are still test-optional, or even test-free, with more than 2,000 out of around 2,600 institutions ditching standardized tests.”