Black Students Lag Far Behind Whites in Their Level of Readiness for College-Level Curriculum

According to the latest data collected by the American College Testing Program, only 4 percent of all African-American high school seniors in 2010 who took the ACT college entrance examination met benchmarks for readiness for college-level work in English, mathematics, science, and reading. Thirty percent of white students who took the test were ready for college-level work in all four subjects.

The data showed that 34 percent of blacks met the college readiness benchmark in English. For whites, the figure was 77 percent. But only 13 percent of blacks met the college readiness benchmark for mathematics compared to 52 percent of whites.

The largest racial gap was in science. Some 36 percent of whites who took the ACT met the benchmark for college-level science. This is six times the rate for blacks.

Copyright © 2010. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.