\u201cI think this system overstates it for sure,\u201d Beasley said. \u201cWe’re using these college-prep courses to prop up the college-readiness numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Tarrant County had 25,785 public school graduates in 2025. Of those, 83% met one of the state\u2019s college-readiness requirements. If you exclude students who met the requirements solely through college-prep courses<\/a>, then 53% met the requirements.<\/p>\n The gap was nearly identical among graduates of public high schools within Fort Worth city limits. While 82% were considered college-ready, that figure dropped to 51% without college-preparatory courses.<\/p>\n The consequences, Beasley said, can extend beyond high school.<\/p>\n Students who believe that they are ready for college may find that they require remedial courses that will not apply toward their degree. Other students may invest hours and money in pursuing an educational path they never finish.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat’s a terrible injustice,\u201d Beasley said. \u201cWe need to be giving our kids an accurate message about whether or not they’re prepared.\u201d<\/p>\n What does college-ready mean?<\/p>\n Under Texas\u2019 college, career and military readiness accountability system, graduates have options to obtain a college-ready status, such as:<\/p>\n Achieving a score on the SAT, ACT or Texas Success Initiative Assessment that meets the benchmark requirements.\u00a0 Each of these pathways will provide a school with equal credits for their college-readiness ratings. But, the indicators do not have equal associations with what happens to students once they graduate.<\/p>\n A study conducted at Texas Tech University of approximately 1 million graduates from Texas high schools showed that students who achieved college-ready scores on the SAT or ACT were 22 percentage points more likely to complete a bachelor\u2019s degree in six years than those who had not reached the same standard.<\/p>\n Earning an associate degree while in high school was associated with a 16-percentage-point increase, while dual credit was associated with a 12-point increase. The findings demonstrate associations, not necessarily causation.<\/p>\n In Tarrant County, 93% of high school seniors who graduated in 2025 took either the SAT or ACT. But only 25% of these seniors achieved the college-readiness standard.<\/p>\n Another 70% took at least one section of the Texas Success Initiative Assessment, while 14% met the college-readiness benchmark in both reading and math. Meanwhile, 20% received qualifying dual credit and 2% earned an associate degree before graduation.<\/p>\n Students can qualify through more than one indicator, meaning the percentages overlap.<\/p>\n The disparities become particularly apparent when examining individual schools.<\/p>\n At Eastern Hills High School in Fort Worth ISD, 91% of graduates were identified as being prepared for college. Only 3% had achieved the SAT or ACT standard, according to the report.<\/p>\n The percentage of students at Polytechnic High School that earned the college-ready designation was 95%, while 4% of those same students met the benchmark on either exam.<\/p>\n The gaps do not necessarily mean students who qualify through other pathways are unprepared for college. Rather, Beasley said, they illustrate how the broad designation can conceal important differences in what students have demonstrated academically.<\/p>\n \u201cYou’ve got to look beyond that state accountability system measure that says college-ready,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The study further indicated that a higher percentage of Black, Hispanic, low-income and English-as-a-second language graduates achieved the college-ready standard via pre-college coursework only.<\/p>\n These differences create concern regarding whether students have an equal opportunity for success at college, Beasley said.<\/p>\n Especially considering there could be real consequences facing those students, said Jacob Kirksey, professor of education policy at Texas Tech.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe implication for students is cost of tuition dollars, cost of time, cost of motivation,\u201d Kirksey said in a blog published by Rice University\u2019s Kinder Institute for Urban Research<\/a>.<\/p>\n College completion remains largely unchanged<\/p>\n The report also provides updated data from the organization\u2019s earlier study<\/a> that followed Fort Worth students through their adult years after eighth grade.<\/p>\n The report tracked 31,489 students who were enrolled in eighth grade at public middle schools located within Fort Worth city limits from 2013 to 2015.<\/p>\n By the time six years had passed since graduation from high school, 14% of the original group had received a bachelor\u2019s degree from a Texas institution and 5% had received an associate degree. Another 3% received their degree from outside Texas.<\/p>\n Approximately 22% of those who have attained secondary education also obtained a certificate or some type of postsecondary credential.<\/p>\n The results were essentially unchanged from the organization\u2019s earlier findings for students who attended eighth grade between 2011 and 2013.<\/p>\n The data on who has completed college is based on older groups of students than the class of 2025 that was evaluated for their readiness to attend college. The data cannot determine how many of these recent graduates will ultimately graduate from college.<\/p>\n Older outcomes were from before the establishment of some college-access efforts in Fort Worth, such as the Tarrant To & Through Partnership, Beasley said.<\/p>\n Still, he is concerned that some students will find out too late that they have to do more academic preparation.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNow not only do you not have a degree, you also have loans,\u201d Beasley said.<\/p>\n Texas is changing how it measures readiness<\/p>\n Beginning with the class of 2027, Texas will tighten its standards for college-preparatory courses. Only classes that are provided by state-approved organizations will count toward college-ready accountability credits.<\/p>\n The approval process will ultimately require providers to illustrate that a minimum of 60% of students who successfully complete their programs achieve a C or higher in their first corresponding college-level course.<\/p>\n The changes are expected to impact some high schools\u2019 A-F accountability ratings, Beasley said, particularly those that have relied heavily on preparatory courses.<\/p>\n He does not necessarily blame districts for using the existing option.<\/p>\n \u201cAnytime you have a system, people are going to gravitate toward what helps them succeed in that system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Fort Worth ISD Superintendent Peter Licata raised similar concerns during a late September discussion with the district\u2019s board of managers, questioning whether college-preparatory courses adequately prepare students for higher education.<\/p>\n \u201cThe coursework that they’re taking to get that (college, career and military readiness) credit may not be substantial enough,\u201d Licata said. \u201cI mean, we’re going to use it if it’s offered.\u201d<\/p>\n Board President Pete Geren also acknowledged the importance of standardized assessments in measuring college readiness, saying results are meaningful when schools adequately prepare students for the exams.<\/p>\n For families, however, there is no reason to wait for the state to change its accountability system before asking questions about their children\u2019s readiness, Beasley said.<\/p>\n Parents need to learn exactly how their child received the college-ready designation, and then determine if the child received the required score on assessments or passed college-level courses.<\/p>\n His suggested question for parents is straightforward: \u201cHow did my child meet that college-ready standard?\u201d<\/p>\n Matthew Sgroi is an education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at matthew.sgroi@fortworthreport.org<\/a> or @matthewsgroi1<\/a>.<\/p>\n Disclosure: FWISD manager Pete Geren leads the Sid W. Richardson Foundation, a financial supporter of the Fort Worth Report. FWISD manager Laurie George is a member of the Report\u2019s reader advisory council. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here<\/a>.<\/p>\n This <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2026\/10\/13\/most-tarrant-county-graduates-are-labeled-college-ready-are-they\/”>article<\/a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org”>Fort Worth Report<\/a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<img src=”https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fortworthreport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/cropped-favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”><\/p>\n <img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/?republication-pixel=true&post=829038&ga4=2820184429″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2026\/10\/13\/most-tarrant-county-graduates-are-labeled-college-ready-are-they\/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } <\/script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”\/\/cdn.parsely.com\/keys\/fortworthreport.org\/p.js”><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Matthew Sgroi, Fort Worth Report October 13, 2026 More than 80% of all public high school graduates…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-466040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nCompleting and receiving a passing grade for certain advanced-level examinations.
\nCompleting dual-credit courses that meet the qualification standards.
\nObtaining an associate degree.\u00a0
\nCompleting college-preparatory classes created as part of a collaborative effort between a school district and an institution of higher learning.\u00a0<\/p>\n