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May 21, 2021,09:00am EDT|4,535 views


DROPPING SAT WON’T DIMINISH COLLEGE BOARD CLOUT

Susan Paterno
Contributor
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
Education
I cover access, excess and equity in higher education.
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After the University of California abandoned high-stakes admission tests this
week, cheers and jeers followed. Testing opponents cited research proving tests
advantage affluent white and Asian-American students. Testing supporters
insisted killing tests is akin to “shooting the messenger.” 

The College Board’s spokesman Zach Goldberg defended the company’s
multi-million-dollar-revenue-generating SAT in the New York Times, blaming “the
system,” not tests, for inequities in American education.



Absent from the debate is how the College Board, which owns the SAT, profits
from the education system it has criticized. The company wields tremendous power
over what’s taught in high school and who gets into college. Yet most people
know nothing about how this $1.1-billion nonprofit has built an educational
empire with public money and little transparency. 



The College Board banks millions of dollars in the Cayman Islands and other
Caribbean tax havens ... [+] with strict privacy laws. The company refuses to
disclose how much.

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“The College Board operates as a nontransparent, unelected, unregulated,
publicly funded federal regulator of K-12 curriculum and gatekeeper to higher
education,” said Akil Bello, a senior director at FairTest, the National Center
for Fair and Open Testing. “The Department of Education needs to investigate it,
regulate it and break it up.”



Promoting equity and access—central to the nonprofit’s mission—allows the
College Board to collect public money at every turn kids take on the road to
college and to amass millions of dollars from states, school districts and
families without paying taxes.

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The company begins building its customer base in kindergarten, marketing college
and career readiness across the K-12 pipeline. The PSAT, offered in middle
school and ninth grade, is the gateway to the high-stakes SAT. The company sells
even more products to promote its largest income generator, Advanced
Placement—curriculum purporting to substitute for college courses.



Aggressive lobbying has convinced lawmakers to replace government-mandated high
school achievement tests with the SAT in numerous states—at taxpayer expense.
Those state contracts let the College Board bring in more taxpayer money and
reclaim dominance over its main competitor, the ACT.

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Where do all those hundreds of millions of SAT and AP dollars go? Think Caymans.

The College Board’s complex finances are so cloaked in mystery even a forensic
accountant could only partially decipher them. The company has more than $1
billion in cash and investments, according to its last publicly released tax
return. With today’s stock market at near all-time highs, College
Board investments could have significantly appreciated. The company is adding
$100 million in cash to its bottom line each year from operations, plus gains
from investments. 

Investments in hedge funds and partnerships with anonymous investors quintupled
to $675 million over four years. About $162 million is in tax havens in the
Caribbean and an unknown amount sits in secret accounts on the tropical island
of Mauritius. Chief Executive Officer David Coleman’s total compensation was
$1.8 million and President Jeremy Singer’s package more than $1 million in 2018,
the most recent data available. Top College Board executives fly first class.

“Most people have no idea that this is going on,” said FairTest’s Robert
Schaeffer, who has testified in state hearings on College Board practices. “The
College Board is extremely good at circling the wagons and protecting itself.”

High-stakes admission tests have institutionalized racial, gender and income
inequality and blocked the path to affordable degrees, according to researchers.
Wealthier students are even more likely to receive extra time to complete exams
and have more money to pay tutors and to retake tests to improve scores.  

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic last summer, with nearly 15 percent
of American students having no home Internet, a Brooklyn girl with no Wi-Fi pled
for help. The College Board told her teacher to direct the student to “bum free
Wi-Fi off the McDonald’s on Knickerbocker,” Stephanie Sun said. A federal
class-action lawsuit filed a year ago accuses the College Board of
discrimination and mishandling AP exams. It seeks to return $500 million to
harmed students.

After multiple inquiries about its finances, the College Board responded with a
generic statement about the company’s mission. “We make big investments when we
see an opportunity to serve students,” Jerome White emailed. “Our revenue is
reinvested into fee waivers and in programs that expand educational
opportunities for all students.” The company does provide fee waivers to poor
students in high-poverty U. S. schools, but it amounted to $129 million in 2018,
about 10 percent of revenues.

Thanks to its suite of AP products, the College Board has the potential to
profit even more during the pandemic. As the influence of the SAT and ACT wanes,
admission decisions—including scholarships—will be based on how well students
perform in GPA-boosting AP classes and on the annual marathon of expensive AP
exams that continue through June. 

The College Board derives its growing power from persuading the trusting public
to ante up hundreds of millions of dollars each year, no questions asked. And
that raises concerns. “How do we know that they’re using the money to improve
education and not just enriching themselves?” asked FairTest’s Bello. “That’s
the question.”

Find out why financial aid fails families and how pay-to-play admissions has
worsened during the pandemic.


Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website or some of my other
work here. 
Susan Paterno
Follow



I expose how public and private systems break down and fail the people they
claim to serve. Publisher’s Weekly describes my new book “Game On: Why College
Admissions is

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