American college kids are getting alarmingly bad grades this year by two metrics: ACT scores and school rankings.
Scores for the ACT college admissions tests were the lowest they’ve been in 30 years. The average ACT score this year was 19.8 out of 36. This is the first time it has been below 20 since 1991.
Also, more kids than ever before failed to meet ANY benchmarks in all tested areas: English, reading, science and math. In 2021, 38% of test takers could not meet any benchmarks. This year it was 42%. That means that nearly HALF of the students taking this test cannot pass it!
And what of the universities that U.S. kids do get into? They are falling in ranking too. This year’s World University Rankings had fewer U.S. schools in the top 100 than ever before. Last year there were 43 American schools on that list. This year, only 34, while the number of Chinese universities increased from two to seven.
