New York's high school seniors are the last who will have to pass Regents exams to earn a diploma. The state Board of Regents on Monday authorized a plan to end the century-old tests as a graduation requirement after the class of 2027 and to replace the state's three diploma types with one.
A year of rulemaking comes next. State Education Department staff said they will begin drafting guidance and regulatory changes right away, with proposed amendments expected in February. If the timeline holds, the Board of Regents would vote in June and the new rules would take effect for the 2027-28 school year, according to the New York Daily News.
Commissioner Betty Rosa framed the change around what wealthy families already get. "For years, we looked at what elite private schools provide for their students, and they do not worry about the Regents exam," she told the board in Albany. "This state really needs to stop putting our kids in coach or a little extra legroom, but rather putting them in first class or business class. I'll take business class. But the only way that we can get there is when we stop thinking about teaching to the test."
What changes, and what stays
The exams themselves are not going away. Regents tests will still measure whether students are meeting state standards in core subjects. What ends is their role in deciding who gets a diploma.
Schools were told earlier this year to come up with their own assessment plans and make them public during the 2027-28 school year. A school could keep using Regents exams, or use a mix of class tests, regular coursework, teacher observations, projects, and other assignments. The state's broader "portrait of a graduate" framework focuses on skills such as communication and critical thinking, which students could demonstrate through things like research projects and internships, Chalkbeat reported. The Education Department is also planning separate high school accountability assessments and said more details will come this fall.
The diploma itself is changing too. New York currently has a local diploma, a Regents diploma, and a Regents diploma with Advanced Designation. Under the new system, every student would earn the same diploma, while seals and endorsements would show additional achievement.
Chancellor Lester Young put the case for dropping the exam gate bluntly. "There are young people right now that graduate from high school, have done everything we told them, and they don't have a diploma," he said. "There's something wrong with that."
The objection
Critics say the replacement does not exist yet, and schools have about a year to build it.
"New York should not tear down the measuring stick before it builds a better one," EdTrust-New York said in a statement Monday afternoon, calling on the Education Department to pause the rollout. "We appreciate the updates provided at today's Board of Regents meeting, but the state still has not explained how it will establish a clear, consistent, and equitable way to determine whether students have the skills they need to succeed after high school." The group cited the state's 85% graduation rate in 2025 against a 56% pass rate on the Algebra 1 Regents exam, and argued that changing how skills are measured will not fix the gaps the tests currently show.
Teachers raised the same concern when the plan took shape in June. "Teachers are going to need time to figure out what the requirements are and how to translate that. Right now, there's no information," Robert Effinger, a teacher at the Bronx High School of Business, told Chalkbeat then.
State officials say they are moving ahead. "Let me be very clear: This has nothing to do with lowering standards," said Zachary Warner, assistant commissioner for the Office of State Assessment. "This has nothing to do with expecting less of our students. We need to provide evidence that students are ready to succeed in the life that comes after high school, and this is not something a Regents exam was ever intended to do."
How far New York is from the rest of the country
New York was one of the last holdouts. For the class of 2026, only six states still conditioned a diploma on passing a state exam: Florida, Louisiana, Ohio, New Jersey, Texas, and Virginia, according to a count by FairTest, a group that opposes high-stakes testing. At the peak, 27 states had or planned such tests. Massachusetts voters ended the MCAS graduation requirement in 2024, and FairTest already listed New York as moving away from its exams after the Regents adopted the outline of this plan. Our breakdown of graduation requirements in every state shows how the rest of the country handles it, and what is changing for the classes of 2026 and 2027 covers the other states in transition.
The change will touch a lot of students. New York has about 1,200 public high schools enrolling roughly 813,000 students, according to federal enrollment data. For students now in ninth, tenth, and eleventh grade, the details of how they will show readiness for a diploma depend on regulations due in February and local plans not due to be made public until the 2027-28 school year.
Sources
New York Daily News: NY ends Regents exams as high school graduation requirement
EdTrust-New York: EdTrust-New York calls on NYSED to pause NY Inspires
Chalkbeat New York: New York phases out Regents exams, but graduation rules remain unclear
FairTest: States that recently eliminated or scaled back high school exit exams (October 2025)
High school counts and enrollment from allk12's analysis of National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data.
