BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Alabama’s high school graduation and college- and career-readiness rates reached record highs for the Class of 2025, as students increasingly met the state’s readiness standards through career-technical education and college credit rather than through earning benchmark scores on standardized tests.
Ninety-three percent of seniors graduated within four years, up from 92% for the Class of 2024, and 91% earned at least one college- or career-readiness indicator, up from 88% for the previous graduating class. The chart below, compiled by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama, shows the progression of each indicator.
The two-percentage-point difference between the graduation and college- and career-readiness rates was the smallest on record.
That gap has narrowed sharply since 2018, when Alabama’s graduation rate was 90%, but its college- and career-readiness rate was 75%, leaving a 15-point gap, according to an analysis released by PARCA.
Since Alabama dropped the high school graduation exam, critics have argued that an Alabama high school diploma no longer has an achievement standard attached to it. State education officials have described the college- and career-readiness indicators as that standard.
State Superintendent Eric Mackey told State Board of Education members in May that the indicators represent “high bars” that are not easy to attain.
“The board’s done a very good job of setting not just benchmarks, but benchmarks that mean something to industry or mean something to college,” Mackey said.
Students can demonstrate readiness in several ways, including meeting an ACT college-readiness benchmark, scoring silver or higher on WorkKeys, passing an Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate exam, earning college credit, completing an approved career-technical course sequence or earning an industry-recognized credential.
Beginning with the Class of 2026, students must earn a readiness indicator to receive a general education diploma. The requirement does not limit the indicator to a particular year of high school.
Mackey said the goal should extend beyond students earning a single indicator, noting that some graduates have qualified for seven or more of the indicators by the time they leave high school.
Rather than treating readiness as a box to check, he said, principals, counselors and other educators should help students identify the opportunities that best prepare them for their plans after high school.
“It’s not just checking a box,” he said. Educators should ask, “For his preparation for life and what he wants to do, how many of these do I need to make he’s enrolled in?”
As the state moved toward making readiness a graduation requirement, the pathways students used to qualify also shifted. PARCA found that the largest gains came through career-technical education and college credit earned through dual enrollment.
The number of students earning a career-technical readiness indicator increased from 15,753 in 2018 to 28,663 in 2025. The number earning college credit while in high school rose from 6,956 to 16,096 during the same period.
Those figures may include students counted in more than one category, but PARCA said they show the expansion of career-technical and college-credit pathways.
Meanwhile, fewer students met an ACT benchmark, an indicator of college readiness. The number fell from 27,929 in 2018 to 22,440 in 2025. Just over 40% of 2025 graduates met a benchmark in at least one ACT subject, compared with more than half in 2018.
The WorkKeys qualification rate also declined, although PARCA noted that fewer students now take the test because school systems may offer it primarily to students who have not already qualified through another indicator.
Mackey told board members he was not troubled by the WorkKeys decline as long as the overall readiness rate continued to rise.
“I’m not worried about it, because I think it’s indicative of the fact that we’re widening the opportunities for students,” Mackey said. “We’re seeing more going into dual enrollment. That’s our fastest-growing area.”
By contrast, Advanced Placement success continued to rise slowly, with about 15% of students earning a qualifying AP score, up from 13% the previous year.
The number earning qualifying scores on an International Baccalaureate exam remained comparatively small: Just 172 students, fewer than 1%, earned that indicator.
The report also found differences in how student groups met the readiness standard.
Asian students were more likely than other groups to meet an ACT benchmark, while Black students were more likely to earn a career-technical indicator. About one-quarter of Black, Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students met an ACT benchmark, compared with slightly more than half of white students.
The report also highlighted schools and districts with the highest graduation and readiness rates.
Four school districts – University Charter School, Piedmont City, Orange Beach City and Haleyville City – reported both 100% graduation and college- and career-readiness rates. Each of the four systems has one high school with a graduating class.
At the school level, 44 schools had a 100% graduation rate, while 63 reported that all seniors earned a readiness designation.
More detailed school- and system-level results are available through PARCA’s interactive Tableau dashboards, where users can filter the data by location, indicator and student group.
The full PARCA report can be found here.