Progress Stagnates for Students from Low Income Families

The number of low-income students meeting key readiness benchmarks for college remained flat among 2014 ACT-tested high school graduates, as it has for the past five years, according to a new report released today by ACT and the National Council for Community and Education Partnerships (NCCEP). More low-income students than ever before, however, took the ACT® test.

The report, The Condition of College & Career Readiness 2014: Low Income Students, examines the academic preparation and postsecondary aspirations of 2014 high school graduates who took the ACT test and reported an annual family income of less than $36,000. About one in four—24 percent—of ACT-tested graduates in 2014 were low-income, compared to 34 percent of students who reported a family income of $60,000 or higher.

On average, low-income students are actually more likely than their peers to report planning to enroll in college; 96 percent planned to attend college, compared to 86 percent of all students. But half of the low-income students did not meet any of the four key ACT College Readiness Benchmarks, suggesting they are ill-prepared for first-year college coursework. This compares to 31 percent of all students.

“We’ve known for a long time that family income and educational success are strongly correlated, and these data confirm that,” said Jim Larimore, ACT chief officer for the advancement of underserved learners. “Our hope is that these findings will bring more attention to the urgent need to improve the academic quality of instruction these students receive and the rigor of courses offered at their schools.”

Students who take ACT’s recommended core curriculum (four years of English and three years each of math, science and social studies) are much more likely than those who don’t to show readiness for college coursework. This is true among low-income students, although those students still perform below their peers in this regard.

Among low income students who took the recommended core coursework:

• English: 47 percent met the ACT College Readiness Benchmark, compared to 64 percent of all students
• Reading: 28 percent met the benchmark, compared to 44 percent of all students
• Math: 25 percent met the benchmark, compared to 43 percent of all students
• Science: 21 percent met the benchmark, compared to 37 percent of all students

“In spite of the alarming lack of national progress expressed in this report, we know that improvement is possible,” said Ranjit Sidhu, president and CEO of NCCEP. “We need more programs like GEAR UP, which demonstrate that when we marry a sustained focus on college readiness with high-quality interventions early in a student’s education, we can make substantial gains with low-income students.”

The National Council for Community and Education Partnerships will feature this report at the NCCEP/GEAR UP Annual Conference, July 20-23, 2015, in Washington, D.C.

The research-based ACT College Readiness Benchmarks specify the minimum scores students must earn on each of ACT’s four subject tests (English, math, reading, and science) to have about a 75 percent chance of earning a grade of C or higher in a typical credit-bearing first-year college course in the corresponding subject area. ACT research suggests that students who meet the benchmarks are more likely than those who do not to persist in college and earn a degree.

The ACT/NCCEP report uses data from the more than 1.8 million ACT-tested 2014 high school graduates. During ACT registration, students are asked to provide information about parental education, family income, high school course taking and postsecondary aspirations.

The report is available at: http://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/CCCR-2014-LowIncomeStudents.pdf