Utah’s ACT scores inched up again this year — edging closer to but still falling below the national average.
“The needle is moving in the right direction,” said Mark Peterson, spokesman for the Utah Board of Education. “We just wish we could move it a lot further and faster.”
The state’s 2018 graduating class scored an average of 20.4 points on the college readiness exam, which has a 36-point scale. The national average, which dipped slightly this year, was 20.8.
Utah administers the test to 100 percent of its public-school seniors, which means its average score tends to be lower than states where the ACT is voluntary and more likely to be completed by only high-achieving or college-bound students.