Ready on paper
"College-ready" doubled. College-going fell.
Texas' official readiness measure and actual college enrollment have moved in opposite directions, for Black students and for everyone else.
Texas grades every high school on how many seniors leave "college, career, or military ready." For Black students statewide, that number roughly doubled in seven years: 37% of the class of 2017, 75% of the class of 2024.
Over almost the same stretch, the share of Black graduates actually enrolling in a Texas college the next fall went the other way, from 54% for the class of 2016 down to 45% for the class of 2022.
The scissors shape those two lines make is not a quirk of one place or one group. Every group shows it, everywhere in Texas: college-going fell for Asian (80 to 64), White (59 to 51), Hispanic (51 to 45), and low-income (47 to 42) graduates too.
What it means: the state's readiness checklist counts a test score, a college credit, a career certificate, or enlistment. All of that can be satisfied without anyone going to college. Readiness on paper has detached from college in practice.