A “not-for-profit membership organization” that aims to “expand opportunities for students and help them develop the skills they need” – that is the mission statement listed on College Board’s website. But as College Board’s CEO takes home 1.8 million dollars annually, it begs the question – how charitable is this charity?
A nonprofit organization: a legal entity organized solely (emphasis on solely) for public benefit. Recently, College Board – a registered non-profit –has been receiving criticism for its 1.2 billion dollar revenue and the generous salaries higher level executives receive. In fact, throughout the years, the institution has come under scrutiny for its monopoly on college admissions testing, including the SAT and AP exams. Critics state that the College Board nearly single handedly dictates the future of students’ higher education.
One of its most famous programs, The Advanced Placement program, generated $500 million dollars in 2022 alone. In Texas, 321,879 students took over half a million AP exams in the 2021-2022 school year. Nationally, 1.2 million students took over 4 million exams in 2024.
Recent speculation has College Board’s monopolistic practices being seen as a violation of the Sherman Federal Antitrust Act, and their nonprofit status does not exempt them from antitrust liability. Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which limits “single firm act” or the actions a company takes to “keep or attain monopoly power,” defines three offenses: monopolization, attempted monopolization, and conspiracy to monopolize. Monopoly power is defined as when a firm’s market share lies between 50 % to 70 %, which means that a company has the ability to manipulate the price of goods in that sector. This being said, the College Board possesses a significant amount of control over standardized testing with its only competition being the ACT. Furthermore, for many institutions, AP exams also serve as a considerable measure of a students academic ability, further increasing their market share.
Some argue that College Board uses their profits to create and maintain their current resources, and due to the organization’s size, a large revenue is reasonable. College Board does put a large amount of their profits back into their organization; in fact, they absorb many of the costs for students who qualify for reduced lunch and federal financial aid. College Board spent nearly $973,652,92 total in 2023, which left them with a meager $45,420,343 in profit. While that may seem like an acceptable expense to revenue ratio, College Board has a over a billion dollars in investments and assets, and while they shouldn’t be penalized for smart financial decisions, the staggering cost of AP Courses, which rises annually, is still exorbitant and more than what many can afford.
To summarize, the College Board holds a significant stake in higher education which disproportionately impacts lower income students, and may even be legally questionable.
