With more than 2.1 million students taking the SAT every year and 4.9 million AP tests distributed each year, it’s no secret the College Board is making a large profit. According to Business Insider, the College Board has had a yearly revenue of over $750 million and after expenses for creating, grading and distributing tests are deducted, a large amount of money still remains.

The public questioned where the remainder of this money was being used. According to the New York Times, Gaston Caperton, the former CEO of the College Board, had a salary of $1.3 million, and many of the other executives also had very high salaries. This caused the Americans for Educational testing Reform (AERT) to question the College Board’s non-profit status.

The Washington Post has also reported that the College Board has spent $1,768,295 lobbying Congress and other public officials. Also, according to bulletin.represent.us, the College Board has three separate lobbying firms with seven registered lobbyists and has tried to require AP classes in every high school in California.

The College Board is able to greatly profit and gain power and influence over education due to the fact it has very few competitors. The SAT or the ACT is required at almost every college and most high school students decide to take the PSAT. Besides the ACT, the College Board has no other competitor, and according to Education Week, more students take the SAT than the ACT by a significant margin.

By having ownership of largely mandated standardized tests the College Board can control the prices of the tests, forcing students to pay more money. The current SAT costs $47.50 to take and there is an additional $17 cost if you decide to take the essay. Students who decided to retake it will have to spend almost $100. Not to mention, students also taking AP tests and SAT subject tests will be churning out more money to the College Board.

With Springboard, AP tests, PSAT, SAT and SAT subject tests, the College Board rakes in a lot of money and with very few competitors, the College Board monopolizes the standardized testing and future of education as a whole.