The Michigan Department of Education announced March 1 that students who re-take the ACT in order to qualify for the Michigan Promise Scholarship will need to score a 21 or higher in order to receive funding.

A change in state law last year provides seniors with a second opportunity to be eligible for installment payments for the Michigan Promise Scholarship. Seniors can take only the college entrance portion of the Michigan Merit Exam (which is at this time the ACT) to qualify for installment payments under the following circumstances:

• They took the complete Michigan Merit Exam (MME) previously.
• They received valid scores in reading, writing, math, science, and social studies.
• They scored below proficient in one of those subjects.
• The ACT score to be considered for installment payments was from an ACT test taken after all three previous requirements were met.

The law stipulates that for these situations, the State Superintendent set a cut score on the college entrance portion of the MME (ACT) that will qualify such students for installment payments. To identify the potential cut score, Michigan Department of Education staff used three different methods of analysis, all of which arrived at approximately the same cut score of 21.

To learn more about how the score was determined, visit www.michigan.gov/mde and click on News & Publications in the left sidebar.