Year after year during May, I enter the freezing gym filled with an expanse of rows of chairs to take my AP tests. This is the reality of 5.5 million students across the world who are subject to College Board’s standardized testing empire. Don’t worry—students are actually stressed throughout the calendar year as, College Board manages SAT testing as well. Although legally a non-profit organization, College Board controls a near-monopoly on testing and “college preparation,” implicitly favoring the wealthy and elite.
College Board was founded in 1899 at Columbia University under the name “College Entrance Examination Board” by representatives of 12 different universities and three high schools. The organization aimed to create a guideline for the classes taught in high school, in subjects like botany, Latin, zoology, Greek, physics, and more. The end-of-the-year exam had a fee of five dollars, corresponding to $155 today. In modern days, College Board is the one company that manages SAT and PSAT testing, AP testing, CLEP exams, BigFuture and CSS for financing college, and other tests.
Nonprofits are typically associated with organizations participating in charity and giving back to the community. However, College Board functions as a privatized, profitable company; in 2020, they reported over one billion dollars in revenue. College Board’s primary revenue stream is through exam fees, score reports, test materials, and score processing. They justify their fees by saying they “reinvest” in education, yet their operating costs don’t seem to reflect that level of reinvestment. For example, instead of reducing costs for students on their AP tests priced at $100, College Board increases exam prices every few years and charges for services like score reports, which many schools recommend or require.
College Board has also been scrutinized in a data leak controversy in February 2024 where they were accused of selling student data. They allegedly leaked over 237,000 names, addresses, and other sensitive information of New York City students in 2019 alone. Though the settlement required College Board to pay a $750,000 fine and make some security commitments, leaking private data is inexcusable; such a large corporation should be held accountable with full transparency about the situation rather than through money and empty promises for the future.
Additionally, College Board has been arguably lobbying for testing-required opportunities. When the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reinstated testing requirements in 2022, they cited research which was eerily similar to College Board’s language on the importance of testing. Testing-required opportunities benefit College Board with such a transparent motive: more testing and retests allow for higher profit margins for the company. Their lobbying efforts prove that their primary concern isn’t fairness or access—it’s how much money ends up in the pockets of high-earning executives, especially as they are the only testing agency in charge of these specific high school standardized tests.
College Board has made a name for itself for centuries. While they process and allow students the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge, in my opinion, the company is on very shaky grounds to claim that they’re a non-profit when they hold a monopoly on testing worldwide. Scandal after scandal, College Board takes advantage of overly stressed high school students and its upper hand in the college admissions process. However, their business model being a monopoly and their multiple fees allows for the company to generate a high amount of revenue. It’ll be interesting to see if they continue to stand the test of time, but until then, I hope they are more transparent with their policies and standards.
Writer’s note: Thank you so much for taking the time to read my articles over these last four years, whether you’ve been a family member, friend, or a stranger. I’m so incredibly grateful for my time at The Lancer and everything it has given me, especially this community. I hope you’ll be keeping in touch by reading some of my future work in college.
