UPDATED In moves designed to make college access easier for low-income students, the two major college-admission testing companies have announced that they鈥檒l expand鈥攐r begin鈥攑rograms to allow students to send their scores to colleges for free.
ACT Inc. announced that starting next September, students from low-income families who use fee waivers to take the ACT will be able to send their scores to 24 colleges or universities without charge.
Current ACT rules allow any students鈥攍ow-income or not鈥攖o send their scores to four institutions for free. That period ends five days after they take the test. After that period, each score report costs $13.
The new policy will allow low-income students to send up to 20 additional reports, for a total of 24. There won鈥檛 be a time-period cap anymore, either; students can send the score reports any time, according to ACT spokesman Ed Colby.
Last year, about 23 percent of the students who took the to do it. The waiver means students don鈥檛 have to pay the for the version of the test that includes writing.
鈥淪tudents from low-income families face a series of unique challenges and barriers that can reduce their access to higher education, and sending ACT scores to the colleges they aspire to attend should not be one of them,鈥� ACT Chief Commercial Officer Suzana Delanghe said in a statement announcing the company鈥檚 policy shift.
Within hours of ACT鈥檚 announcement, its biggest rival, the College Board, announced an expansion of its free score-report policy. It said that beginning next spring, low-income students can send free score reports to as many colleges or universities as they wish. Currently, all students get to send four free score reports, and , for a total of eight.
In the graduating class of 2017, about 24 percent of the 1.8 million students who took the . The waiver covers the $46 registration cost of the SAT without the essay, and the $60 fee for the version that includes the essay.
David Coleman, the president of the College Board, said in a statement that he is proud both companies are 鈥渟tanding up for the students who need it the most.鈥�
College Board officials said they had been planning the move to unlimited, free score reports for months, and had announced it to their member leadership this fall.
鈥攊f the process is simplified so it isn鈥檛 too daunting鈥攃an improve the chances that students will enroll.
The College Board also announced that low-income students can now submit the , an application that about 400 colleges and universities require for financial aid, for free. Currently, it costs $25 to submit the form to one school, and $16 to submit it to each additional school, and low-income students can use waivers for up to eight schools. The new policy will let them send the CSS Profile to an unlimited number of schools, College Board spokesman Zach Goldberg said.
UPDATED There鈥檚 a significant catch to the ACT鈥檚 expanded free-score-report policy that wasn鈥檛 immediately apparent when the company announced the program. It won鈥檛 apply to students who take the test for free during the school day.
Both ACT and the College Board have state and district contracts that allow鈥攐r require鈥攁ll students to take the college-entrance exam for free. Those programs are growing quickly, and involve many students.
The College Board said that its , whether they take the SAT with a fee waiver outside school hours, or during the school day, free of charge.
The ACT, however, said its new free-score-report program will not apply to students in its school-day program. Students who take the ACT during the school day don鈥檛 use fee waivers because the test is already free for them.
Because those students don鈥檛 apply for a fee waiver, company spokesman Ed Colby said, ACT doesn鈥檛 automatically know which ones are from low-income families and which aren鈥檛. But the company is looking into the situation to see whether it can offer the additional free score reports to the 鈥渉undreds of thousands鈥� of students who take the ACT during the school day, Colby said.