By: Robert Merrick
Business Manager
The College Board is a disgusting monopoly taking advantage of students in a greedy rush under the guise of a “nonprofit.” For those who have been fortunate enough not to have interacted with this “nonprofit,” they have a monopoly on most major tests: AP exams, SATs and PSATs. Anyone attempting to get into a competitive college needs a mix of these—primarily AP exams—and the College Board locks each of these tests behind a fairly substantial cost.
A general recommendation for anyone interested in attending a UC is to take at least 4 AP classes, according to Revolution Prep. Assuming a student takes the PSAT and SAT once on top of that, they are expected to pay at least $425 for a competitive application, excluding college application fees. That is a lot of money; in fact, it’s substantial enough to have allowed the College Board to gross over $1 billion annually. The fees aren’t horrific and can be reduced if need be, but the principle is that a nonprofit dedicated to providing testing for more academically elite students is making more money than 10 countries.
Large income isn’t inherently a problem, but College Board’s revenue isn’t going anywhere beneficial. In 2019, their CEO earned $1.67 million with nine other employees also making over $500,000. Still, there is a tremendous amount of money left to be spent, especially since being a “nonprofit” earns the College Board a great deal of tax deductions and exemptions. Despite clearly having the money to spend, the College Board insists on excessive fees. While it’s good business to charge as much as you can get from your customers, it’s incredibly disingenuous when the gouging comes from a nonprofit. “It’s basically paying to do well in school,” said junior Omé Zúñiga.
The purpose of a nonprofit organization should be to assist the community, not leech off of it. Why, then, should the billion-dollar non-profit insist on late fees, exorbitant costs and additional charges for each score students want to send to colleges? It’s simple: they’re a business. But a good business is not a good nonprofit. Those fees may be adding hundreds of millions of dollars to the company’s profits, but it’s at the expense of the people this organization should be supporting. There needs to be more separation as many students feel like “our education is run by a private company,” according to Zúñiga.
Imagine a reentry nonprofit for juvenile delinquents. They charge prisons to administer their program; ex-prisoners must pay each time they want to submit a job application and for any services they receive to make the transition easier. Isn’t that ridiculous? Wouldn’t this “hypothetical” company be considered extremely predatory, effectively mandating the use of their services to maintain even footing with everyone else? Yet that’s effectively what the College Board does. Even if they’re not at the same disadvantages, students are still forced to pay lots to maintain even chances for their future.
The most frustrating part is that there is very little that students can do. As an individual, you can’t protest against these business practices because it will severely limit your ability to pursue a higher education, and there isn’t enough political pressure to discourage this predatory behavior. The United States already has problems with its higher levels of education, and the College Board is just an extension of that. Lowering prices and being declassified as a nonprofit could help manage College Board’s problems, but until then, it will sit as a parasite in the background feeding off of the fabricated requirements of colleges.
