As a member of a capitalist society, a proponent of the free market, and an aspiring college student, I do not look up to any organization more than I do the College Board. As I struggle through arduous paperwork to apply for financial aid, sign in dozens of times per day to access my own classes, and pay oodles of money for the right to take an exam I’ve been studying for all year, I cannot help but admire the incredible system the organization has created to enable better access to higher education for everyone (except the people who can’t afford it).
Obviously, the College Board calls themselves a “not-for-profit.” Students should be grateful for this, as it reassures them that their hard-earned cash gets recycled into improving access to fee waivers, and not simply being relabeled as “excess-revenue” that the CEO can take home—even if that’s not the truth. Regardless of the fact that they make more money in a year than the average for-profit company, the College Board comprises of a good group of people simply attempting to prepare kids for the wallet drain of college, teaching them that you can and will be overcharged for literally anything you do. Want to take a test to prove competency in math and reading so you can go to college? Pay money. Want to get the required textbooks so you can actually attend the classes you pay more than 50k a year for? Pay more money. In reality, the costs the College Board forces you to incur are basically the same as a parent making their children pay for their own gas. They really just want what’s best for us kids.
Plus, if you think about it from a capitalist point of view, what’s more admirable than a company charging you to apply for financial aid? Imagine how silly the government must feel for allowing students to fill out the FAFSA free of charge, when the College Board makes big bucks with their CSS form! Plus, with the CSS being infinitely more invasive, you know silly old College Board gets information a lot more enriching than those 15 dollars per school. Students must learn to appreciate all the work college board puts into asking for your parents’ yearly incomes, personal assets, loans, investments, and every other incredibly personal aspect of their finances—it’s all done with the student’s best interest at heart, despite the appearance that David Coleman and his minions make up the solo beneficiaries.
Let’s take a closer look at AP tests, another reason why students should be eternally grateful for the omnipotent oligarchy of the College Board. Once again setting a great example for all students who dream of becoming amoral, cutthroat businessmen, the College Board has recently doubled their efforts to have low-income students take AP tests. Needless to say, they can’t afford to grant all these students fee waivers—the College Board isn’t made of money with their pathetic 1.1 billion dollar “excess revenue” every year. So students pay 90 dollars per test, a completely reasonable amount if you consider that schools get a whopping 9 dollar rebate per exam (who’s really getting rich here?). Considering the fact that increased access to AP tests by no means corresponds with increased access to education, a vast majority of low-income students fail their AP tests. Truly, high schoolers should commend the (increasingly rich) College Board for giving them such an important lesson: don’t bite off more than you can chew (or you just might waste hundreds of dollars).
It has become patently obvious that students who hate the College Board for the laggy website, overwhelming course loads, and general exploitation of high school students fail to appreciate all the good the College Board does for students everywhere. After all, who else has the kindness in their heart to randomly cancel SAT tests that can’t be rescheduled (they just saved your Saturday!) or forbid you from deleting schools from your CSS profile when you’ve already been rejected (Stanford might change their mind!)? Ultimately, the College Board creates an environment of fun learning that truly makes students want to re-sign into their account (after leaving the page for literally two seconds), watch some daily videos, and desperately attempt to learn an entire year’s curriculum in a day. From now on, I hope ungrateful students begin to appreciate the College Board for what they really do: connect students’ wallets to their education.
Welcome to The Shield’s annual satire section. Writers use satire to improve a problem in society. Sometimes readers misunderstand the satire as they do not recognize the hyperbole, irony, rhetorical questions, sarcasm, and understatements. A great satirist will also address counter-arguments (the non-satirical solution) with great mockery and sarcasm. Readers may mistake the satirical solution for the actual solution that the writer proposes. The ideas in these satire stories do not necessarily represent the opinions of The Shield or Westmont. If one is confused about satire, please contact a friendly neighborhood English teacher.