Kansas high school students taking the ACT college entrance exam are scoring better on average than their peers nationally and a higher percentage appear ready for college courses.

But figures released Wednesday by ACT also show that average scores for Kansas students haven’t changed much in recent years.

The State Department of Education noted that 32 percent of the 2015 high school graduates in Kansas met all benchmarks for college readiness on the ACT test.

That’s higher than the national figure of 28 percent and also up from the state’s figure of 28 percent for 2011 graduates.

The average composite score for 2015 graduates in Kansas was 21.9 on a 36-point scale, compared to the national average of 21. But the figure for Kansas was 22 for 2011 graduates.