The #ACT will no longer be a nonprofit, but instead has been purchased by the private equity firm Nexus Capital Management in July 2024. The test and test cost will be the same, but how does it affect transparency? Now Nexus Capital can harvest data and sell the student’s information. And sadly, companies can use the data and auto rejected potential employees with low ACT scores. Some students just don’t test well, and this is just another disadvantage.
“Our partnership with Nexus Capital Management uniquely positions ACT to meet a watershed moment in our nation, as the demand for talent is growing and becoming more diverse,” say Janet Godwin, ACT CEO. She’s arguing the country’s need for trained workers after high school and college “has never been higher, nor has the need to ensure that every learner has access to equitable college and career planning resources, guidance, and insights.”
Testing for Profit
Through the acquisition, ACT will become a public benefit corporation, a special business designation that combines corporate structure with certain accountability and transparency requirements. It will also retain a nonprofit arm, whose members will have seats on the new corporation’s board. Godwin said she hopes this signals their commitment to remain true to their educational mission.
As a public benefit corporation, the ACT will no longer have certain accountability measures that it had as a nonprofit, according to Coleman. The College Board, a nonprofit, can’t change the cost of the test, for instance, without the approval of its oversight board, and is obligated to take the views of member colleges and educators into account on major decisions, he added.
“As a nonprofit, you must take fuller responsibility for the structural barriers around you,” David Coleman, CEO of the College Board, said. He pointed to the organization’s fee waiver initiative for low-income SAT-takers, into which the organization has invested over $26 million. “We want to bring in revenue to reinvest, but our first interest is never about money … Sometimes you have to eliminate business opportunities to create access opportunities.”
How will this affect college graduates?
The ACT will able to sell the data they’ve collected. Future employers can see your scores and predetermine and assume your job capabilities, strengths, and supposed weaknesses. Clearly marking students with socioeconomic disadvantages, learning disabilities, and more as “red flags”.
Articles from Inside Higher Ed, ACT
#datacollection #harvestdata #privateequity #nonprofit