Standardized testing is a natural monopoly -- if you have every college making their own, it's a crazy duplication of work, will produce a lot of substandard tests, and will put tons of strain on the students. Might as well ask everybody to lay their own fiber.

ETS isn't perfect (I think the amount they charge for GRE-related stuff is sickening) but it at least does a good job of making sure the best prep resources possible are cheap or free.

> monopoly

Aside from the fact that this is all off-topic since MIT's announcement is about the SAT subject tests, not the SAT itself, it is not a true monopoly anyway.

MIT's web site says they accept either the SAT or the ACT. ("We require the SAT or the ACT.") The SAT is from College Board, and the ACT is from ACT, Inc., which are two different organizations. Both tests are in wide use, so if anything it is a duopoly.

Won't each college having to have their own test lead to many/most colleges, especially smaller ones, finding it easier or more cost effective to purchase their test from a central source, leading to some large College Board-like company making exams and a prep industry for that standard exam?

I think it’s pretty insane that a single company is a gatekeeper to elite institutions.

I’m honestly not sure of the solution, but the problem is pretty evident. College Prep could raise exam fees by 200% tomorrow and you have no law, no oversight from the government or anything preventing them from doing so. Absolute monopoly.

They’re no different than professors in bed with book publishers, mandating a particular book for the course. Students need to spend $350 on a textbook is insanity.

>I think it’s pretty insane that a single company is a gatekeeper to elite institutions.

Not just elite institutions, I would say 99% of accredited institutions in the US. You would be hard pressed to find an accredited college program in the US that doesn't require either SAT or ACT (talking about the general test, not the subject ones).

P.S. That 99% estimation is obviously made up, but I am yet to find a college that doesn't require an ACT or SAT score, and I applied to many different kinds of colleges in early 2010s (out of state, in-state, public, private, etc.), with almost none of them being MIT-tier elite.

And how exactly will you "dismantle it"?

People want to pay thousands of dollars to try to gain access to elite institutions. No matter what test you'll come up with, someone will offer an expensive prep course for it, because they will have willing customers.

Mandate that colleges accept scores from at least 3 different standardized tests, administered by different companies, and that the scores must be easily comparable. That may help break ETS's stranglehold over the market and test fees or test prep material might become reasonable.

the SAT test fee is about $65 and there's tons of free prep material (including direct from college board). what would you consider a reasonable price?

Hard to say if that's actually reasonable, given there's exactly 1 (maybe 2, if you count the ACT) test providers. Not really a competitive market.

For a multiple-choice exam, administered electronically to dozens of test-takers supervised by one proctor...is that actually reasonable? Plus they charge you $15 extra if you want more than 4 scores. Most students apply to more than 4 colleges. Are they physically mailing scores to these institutions?

For a mostly-electronic process (other than the essay grading) $65 sounds like a lot. $40 for the non-essay option sounds even more crazy.

I don't mean reasonable in a market equilibrium sense, more of a "hey, that price seems about right" sense.

I'm sure it's not trivial to make multiple versions of the same test every year where the scores are all comparable with each other. then you have to distribute the materials while minimizing the chance that they leak and people come in with the answers memorized.

the college board itself makes about 15% profit each year. definitely a lot better than some market segments, but hardly exorbitant. I guess they might find some ways of trimming the fat if they had more competition, but who knows. more competitors means fewer test-takers to amortize the test design costs over.

It needs to be dismantled due to monopoly. I’m not sure how. Those are orthogonal.

What you’re getting at is the government creates these types of monopolies due to massive regulations and licensing.

The issue is not with the college prep companies. It’s with government getting involved in education, making it way more expensive than it should be. The free market will drive prices down, especially in the education market.

What does the government getting involved in education have anything to do with the monopoly power of ETS? MIT is private, ETS's owner is a company. The problem is that MIT accepts only SAT scores - they should be forced to accept other standardized test scores too. That would create an actual market for standardized testing, along with competition and lower prices.

According to the original article, MIT accepts SAT or ACT. I have no idea if SAT is preferred though. It was certainly the default way back when when I was applying to schools.

That's just a duopoly. Gotta have at least 3 - maybe 4.

> College Prep is a giant business that needs to be dismantled. They have a monopoly in this area.

Is there really a single company called "College Prep"?

Is the evidence really that suggestive that college prep makes such a huge difference? I am skeptical, it seemed pretty easy to just study from the blue book.

Probably the biggest way to stop the affluent from taking advantage of the system would be to eliminate school choice.