A Google search for “nonprofit” will yield results like the Salvation Army, Feed My Starving Children and Fill a Heart 4 Kids. While these only name a few, the list goes on. One would assume this is what constitutes a nonprofit – a “do good” organization focusing on community service. However, our perception of what a nonprofit is drifts far from its reality. But — if this is what even Google considers a nonprofit — why are organizations, such as the notable example of the College Board, crowned with the “nonprofit” title when they do not fit that perceived idea? Is it truly fair for them to have that title and, with that title, the respective benefits?

Before getting into the why’s and how’s, it is important to establish what Section 501(c)(3) is. According to the Internal Revenue Service, “The exempt purposes set forth in Section 501(c)(3) are charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals.” Simply put, organizations listed under this section are financially granted to serve their benevolent purposes to help the greater good; the Make-A-Wish Foundation (a charitable organization), Amnesty International and — of course — the College Board all fall under this category. Claiming a mission to “connect students to college success,” College Board has created programs, such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test and Advanced Placement, for the “seven million students [it reaches] per year.”

While this may be all true, what is equally true is the fact that this “nonprofit” organization has reached just around, or even over, one billion dollars annually since 2015. In 2022, College Board CEO David Coleman and President Jeremy Singer made about $1.8 million each. Comparing revenue and compensations — and counting all of College Board’s excessive zeros — the Make-A-Wish Foundation reached its highest revenue of only $135 million in 2023, with total, current net assets of $510 million. Meanwhile, the College Board’s net assets were about $1.6 billion in 2022.

Now, in comparison with other nonprofits, the question stands: How does the College Board get away with the amount of money it gains per year? Well, it’s a little document called Form 990: an IRS-issued form mandated for transparency purposes that every organization must annually fill out to be exempted from income taxes, given that it is providing a public benefit.

Before examining how the College Board uses its exorbitant funds, we must first look at how it makes its money. Currently, taking one AP exam costs $104 (excluding AP Seminar and AP Research, which are $146). For an essay-included SAT, it is $117; to simply get your SAT score by phone, it is $15; to confirm if your answers are correct, it is $55; to confirm if your essay was graded correctly, it is another $55; and to send your scores to colleges, it is $12 for every college after the first four. The list just keeps going.

According to the College Board’s 990 form, it invested $162 million in the Caribbean Islands. Why would an organization that proudly asserts its efforts to help American students invest in the Caribbean? Since the College Board won’t proudly admit this one, we will: it’s a tax loophole. The Caribbean Islands have been a tax haven for many multinational businesses like the College Board, allowing them to pay minimal tax liabilities. Are these investments helping achieve their mission to support students in America? No, they really aren’t. And the thing is: it makes the situation even worse by not only exploiting the definition of a nonprofit but also by taking advantage of the very people it’s meant to publicly benefit.

In 2007, about two million students in the US attended a college or university. 12 years later, 2.1 million attended. During these years, the only number that significantly increased was the number of College Board tests that were bought and taken. In 2007, 2.5 million students took an AP exam, and 1.5 million took the SAT. In 2019, 5 million took an AP exam, and 2.5 million took the SAT. With the growing number of test takers, the College Board has used this to its advantage, exploiting them by increasing its prices for simply signing up for a test or adding unnecessary fees. 

The College Board claims its mission is to help students across the U.S. achieve academic success in high school and college, yet it clearly seems to misunderstand the reality of its target demographic. This world is not a utopia. Millions of low-income students have little to no hope of passing these AP exams and doing well on SATs due to the lack of necessary support from the College Board.

“Nonprofit” organizations, especially the College Board, are simply looking for ways to exempt taxes and maximize profit. While there are legitimate organizations that want to do good — such as Make-a-Wish — companies that are simply looking for tax loopholes don’t deserve the same treatment. Being tax-exempt is supposed to aid these “do-good” organizations, but it becomes unfair when other companies abuse this policy. For this reason, we believe that the nonprofit title should be given to organizations that are trying to make an impact in the world, not those that just want to make a profit.