BY: Natasha Jasperson
A Routine Exam with Hidden Influence
On a quiet weekday morning, a high school junior logs into a state-mandated SAT session from a school computer, joining thousands of peers taking the same exam during the day. In other districts, students sit for the ACT with pencil and paper under similar statewide arrangements. The moment feels routine, just another step toward proving “college readiness.” Yet behind that familiar ritual lies a less visible reality: the College Board and ACT, Inc., the private organizations that produce the SAT and ACT, wield extraordinary influence over public education policy nationwide.
What is often framed as a neutral measure of readiness is, in practice, reinforced through state contracts, lobbying, and mandates that embed these exams deeply into public school systems. The issue is not simply about college admission preferences; it is a policy question about how two testing companies came to occupy such a powerful public role, and what that concentration of influence means for students, schools, and the possibility of meaningful alternatives.
Origins of the SAT and ACT
The SAT and ACT did not begin as fixtures of the public school experience. The SAT, first administered in 1926 by the College Board, was designed as a voluntary admissions tool to help selective colleges compare applicants from different high schools. The ACT, introduced in 1959 by ACT, Inc., positioned itself as a curriculum-based alternative and steadily gained traction, particularly among public universities in the Midwest and South. For decades, both exams remained largely optional, typically taken by college-bound students on weekend test dates outside of regular school hours.
From Optional Exams to Statewide Mandates
The shift toward statewide use accelerated in the 1990s and early 2000s, as standards-based reform and the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act pushed states to adopt uniform measures of college and career readiness. Beginning in the mid-2000s, states such as Illinois (2001 for ACT statewide) and Colorado (2001 for ACT statewide, later switching to the SAT in 2016) signed broad contracts to administer college entrance exams during the school day. What had been voluntary admissions instruments increasingly became embedded in state testing systems, often replacing or supplementing homegrown high school assessments.
By the 2010s, the role of these exams had expanded further. Many states incorporated SAT or ACT results into school accountability ratings, federal reporting, and district performance metrics under policies aligned with the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act. This evolution transformed two privately developed exams into quasi-public benchmarks—tools that not only influence college admissions but also help define how states evaluate their own public school systems.
Lobbying and Policy Influence
The growing role of college entrance exams in public education has been accompanied by sustained lobbying activity from the organizations that produce them. According to OpenSecrets, the College Board reported $120,000 in federal lobbying expenditures in 2025—a modest figure compared to earlier peaks, but consistent with its ongoing presence in education policy discussions. The organization’s spending reached a notable high of approximately $660,000 in 2007, during uncertainty surrounding the future of the No Child Left Behind Act, highlighting how closely federal accountability policy and testing markets have become intertwined. Meanwhile, ACT, Inc., reported $35,000 in federal lobbying expenditures in 2025, reflecting a smaller but persistent advocacy footprint.
Beyond federal lobbying, both organizations have cultivated long-standing relationships with state education agencies, governors’ offices, and legislative committees responsible for K–12 accountability. These relationships often take shape through procurement processes, advisory roles, pilot programs, and technical guidance offered to states seeking college-readiness metrics. Because statewide testing contracts can span multiple years and cover millions of students, even relatively modest lobbying investments can yield significant policy influence.
Statewide Contracts and Embedded Systems
Their policy impact is most visible in legislation and administrative rules that embed nationally normed college entrance exams in state accountability systems. In several states, statutory language authorizes the use of a “nationally recognized college readiness assessment” for high school accountability or graduation pathways—a phrasing that, in practice, narrows the field largely to the SAT or ACT. Critics argue that such language aligns closely with testing-company business models by institutionalizing demand through public systems, while supporters contend it provides states with ready-made, externally benchmarked measures.
Michael Torres, with Classic Learning Test, said, “The biggest hurdle is the fact that the SAT and ACT are written by name into state laws in almost every state in the country. That includes scholarships funded by state governments, graduation requirements from public high schools, how students qualify for dual enrollment, and the accountability programs for public high schools. For us to have any use case for the vast majority of students, especially public school students, we have to change that by either taking their names out and making it vendor-agnostic or adding our name to it. Compounding that problem is the fact that the College Board and ACT combine to have well over $2 billion in revenue annually, so they have an ample lobbying budget.”
Across the country, states have formalized their reliance on national college entrance exams through large, multi-year procurement contracts with the College Board and ACT, Inc. These agreements typically bundle test administration, reporting, and data services into statewide packages that can span several years and cover entire graduating cohorts. Because the exams are delivered at scale during the school day, the contracts often function less like optional vendor relationships and more like embedded components of state accountability systems.
The financial scope of these arrangements is substantial. Statewide testing contracts commonly reach millions of dollars over their full term, reflecting per-student fees multiplied across hundreds of thousands of test-takers. Once adopted, the logistical integration—training staff, aligning reporting systems, and syncing accountability metrics—can make switching providers costly and politically complex, reinforcing long-term commitments.
Mandates, Competition, and Student Choice
Policy design has further cemented this structure. As of January 2025, 25 states require students to take either the ACT or SAT, typically in 11th grade, often tying results to graduation pathways or school accountability measures. An additional five states administer one of the exams free of charge during the school day, expanding participation even where it is not formally required for graduation. In many jurisdictions, these mandates apply to all public high school students, not just those planning to attend college.
Critics argue that such requirements effectively narrow the competitive landscape. When statutes or regulations specify a “nationally recognized” college readiness assessment and mandate universal participation, the practical effect is to lock in the small number of providers already operating at national scale. Supporters counter that statewide testing promotes equity and consistent benchmarks. Either way, once a state mandates a specific college entrance exam for every junior, meaningful competition becomes difficult to sustain.
Torres added, “Another hurdle is that colleges across the country have been using the SAT and ACT since Dwight Eisenhower was president. That’s when the ACT came out. It’s a slow process to convince universities that alternative tests are legitimate. That took a long time initially, and now it’s accelerating—just in January, 11 colleges adopted our test. The process is speeding up, but it’s still slow.”
