Almost every high school student at one point or another takes the SAT and/or AP exams. High scores on these tests can help students get into more selective universities and even grant them scholarship money. However, these tests cost a lot of money ($68 for the SAT and $98 for AP exams), and it costs even more to send scores.
The company that runs all of these tests, as well as the PSAT, is called College Board. Despite being titled as a non-profit, College Board held over $2 billion dollars in cash and investments in 2024.
A non-profit is defined as an organization whose purpose isn’t to make money. Many recognized non-profits are charity organizations that have the intent of providing goods and services that the government doesn’t.
Evidently, it’s difficult to run an organization without making any sort of profit. However, when a company is making billions of dollars off of what it does, the line between being a non-profit and a monopoly gets blurred.
A monopoly is an organization that has full control over a specific market and has the power to control prices without competition. College Board is the only company that administers the SAT and AP tests, meaning they fully control the market, with their only competition being the ACT.
Additionally, because College Board is recognized as a non-profit organization, it is exempt from federal income taxes under the IRS section 501(c), allowing their billions to increase unchecked.
A huge part of what the College Board controls are the AP exams and curriculum. AP classes are designed to allow students to take more challenging courses and earn college credit through them by doing well on the AP exam. Earning college credits can help students save time and money on courses that may be required for their major or as a general education class.
Certain schools offer more AP classes than others due to lack of money or resources in poorer communities. Additionally, certain schools pay for their students’ AP exams while others don’t. This gap in opportunities greatly affects marginalized communities where students already struggle to pay for college.
The SAT and PSAT function in a very similar way. Many schools offer a school day SAT, allowing students to take the test for free. However, not every school is able to do this due to financial constraints.
If a student doesn’t get the score they want after taking the SAT through their school they can retake it but only if they pay a fee of $68. Additionally, they may have to travel far distances for an available testing location and pay money for transportation costs. Testing dates are also very limited and might not work within a student’s schedule.
On top of the testing fee, the College board also charges students to send their scores to colleges. Students are able to send AP scores to one college each year for free and SAT scores to four. The score recipients can only be chosen before a student has gotten back their score, providing uncertainty towards if their scores are worth sending.
The fee for sending both AP and SAT scores after the freebies is $15 per score report. While this doesn’t seem like much, this number can grow quickly for students wanting to send their scores to multiple schools.
College Board’s wealth continues to grow due to the desire that many students have to get into selective colleges and be successful. They are profiting off of children. In the future, the organization should have a cap on how much money they’re making, and have stricter requirements on supporting schools and educators.
