The College and Career Readines and Success Center closed on September 30,2019 because the grant cycle for the U.S. Department of Education Comprehensive Centers ended. The information on this website will no longer be updated. Visit www.air.org for updates on college and career readiness.
This study looks at reforms successfully sustained in four states – Texas, Indiana, Massachusetts, & South Carolina – to develop strategies and processes that can be implemented by others to achieve similar sustainability in their efforts of college- and career ready education reform. It discusses ten strategies used within these four states and summarizes the lessons learned from each.
This ACT research report looks at the effectiveness of encouraging students to take more rigorous college-prep courses as a means of improving high school student achievement. The author uses data from ACT's 8th, 10th and 11/12th grade tests and compares it to student ACT scores in English, math, science, and reading. The report concluded that taking additional college prep courses or advanced or honor courses did not significantly increase achievement of students post-high school.
This longitudinal study examines the dynamic between high school curricula and students’ persistence through their first 3 years of a four-year college. Findings demonstrate a consistent advantage in terms of staying on track to obtain a bachelor's degree for those that completed rigorous high school curricula and somewhat so for those that completed mid-level curricula when compared to their peers who completed a core or lower-level curricula.
This study evaluates which high school graduates attending the Florida Community College System would be eligible to attend the State University System (SUS) based on the change in admission criteria, which allows for the acceptance of any student graduating in the top 20% of their class who also completed the 19 credits required for admission.
This study examines the extent to which Advanced Placement (AP) and other honors-level courses taken in high school play a role in student’s performance in college. Data from a sample of 81,445 freshmen entering the University of California were examined. It was determined that the number of AP and honors courses taken in high school has little to no relationship to students’ performance in college.
This study analyzes the success of Advanced Placement (AP) students in college compared to other high achieving students. A questionnaire and college grade point averages of 41 high achieving college students in courses in natural science and English are examined. Results showed that AP students did not earn significantly higher grades in college compared to those that were considered high achieving students, and AP students also did not find their high school courses more beneficial than their high achieving peers.
This study examined college readiness benchmark scores for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) to determine the accuracy of the benchmarks for indicating college readiness. The findings revealed that students who met the benchmark were more likely to have enrolled in a postsecondary institution, earned higher grades in high school and their postsecondary institution, and to have taken a core curriculum and more rigorous courses in high school.
Using American College Testing (ACT) data, this study assessed whether students have the knowledge and skills necessary to enroll and succeed in a first-year course at a postsecondary institution. The report presents the percentage of students meeting the benchmarks in each area, alignment of student aspirations and workforce demands, graduates exposed to college entrance tests and students pursuing a core curriculum, overall academic achievement and behavior, and policies and practices to improve college readiness.
This study examined survey data of potentially eligible scholarship recipients to determine the effects a state-level merit-based financial aid program had on college access for underrepresented students. Findings showed that African American and low-income students' decisions to apply for college are likely to be impacted by their eligibility for scholarships.
This study analyzes four different English language arts college readiness standards sets to determine the alignment of content and standards statements in three comparison sets to a benchmark set, and examines the cognitive complexity of all of the sets. Approximately 5 percent of the benchmark statements align with content in all three comparison sets. 53-68 percent of statements in the four sets were rated level 3 on a four-level cognitive complexity scale.
