Scores For This College Admissions Test Have Declined For 6th Straight Year

For the sixth straight year, high school students throughout the country taking the ACT have reported declining test scores.

The average composite score on the ACT test fell to 19.5 for the Class of 2023, a decline of 0.3 points from 2022, according to data released by ACT, the nonprofit organization that administers the college readiness exam. The maximum score is 36.

The average scores in mathematics, reading and science subjects were all below the ACT College Readiness Benchmarks for those subjects. Between 2022 and 2023, average English scores declined 0.4 points (from 19.0 to 18.6), average mathematics scores declined 0.3 points (from 19.3 to 19.0), average reading scores declined 0.3 points (from 20.4 to 20.1), and average science scores declined by 0.3 points (from 19.9 to 19.6).

Roughly 1.4 million high school seniors took the ACT test in 2023, an increase over the 2022 graduating class. The data released include ACT test score results from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, including 16 states that required all students to take the ACT test as part of their statewide testing programs, and another seven states that funded ACT testing on an optional basis.

“This is the sixth consecutive year of declines in average scores, with average scores declining in every academic subject,” says ACT CEO Janet Godwin. “We are also continuing to see a rise in the number of seniors leaving high school without meeting any of the college readiness benchmarks, even as student GPAs continue to rise and students report that they feel prepared to be successful in college.”

ACT research continues to show that students meeting a benchmark on the test have approximately a 50 percent chance of earning a B or better, and approximately a 75 percent chance of earning a C or better, in the corresponding college course or courses.

Yet more than 4 in 10 seniors don’t meet the necessary college readiness benchmarks, and 70 percent of seniors fall short of the college readiness benchmark for mathematics, according to ACT.

Godwin says graduates are not properly prepared for success in college or their careers. “These systemic problems require sustained action and support at the policy level,” she says. “This is not up to teachers and principals alone – it is a shared national priority and imperative.”

The most recent decline could be due to the pandemic. The graduating Class of 2023 was in its first year of high school when COVID-19 reached the U.S. The proportion of “COVID cohort” seniors meeting none of the ACT College Readiness Benchmarks reached historic highs in 2023, according to ACT. Twenty-one percent of students met all four benchmarks, while 43 percent met none of these benchmarks. The percentage of students meeting all four benchmarks dropped 1.3 percentage points, from 22.1 percent in 2022 to 20.8 percent in 2023, whereas the percentage of students meeting no benchmarks increased by nearly two percentage points, from 41.6 percent in 2022 to 43.3 percent in 2023.