Colleges Are Paying as Little as 50 Cents per Student to Gain Personal Information for Admissions Decisions

Manuela Ekowo was quoted in Business Insider about the money that the College Board, ACT, and NRCCUA make from selling student data each year:

The report, called “The Promise and Peril of Predictive Analytics in Higher Education,” detailed the ways in which colleges pay for student data. For less than 50 cents a name, colleges glean student data from third-party groups.

The College Board, which administers the SAT, the ACT, and the National Research Center for College and University Admissions (NRCCUA) all collect student information that schools pay for. All three are non-profits.

While it’s hard to put an exact figure on just how much money the College Board, ACT, and NRCCUA make from selling student data each year, Manuela Ekowo, a co-author of the New America paper, estimates the payoff is high.

“I can only imagine that they are reaping in huge sums per year because they almost have a monopoly in this space,” Ekowo told Business Insider.

School use this information for essential decisions around granting admission and provided financial aid to a particular student, according to Ekowo.