# Uncovering College Board's Billion-Dollar Grip on Education | The Deep

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-loopcast-5671162/uncovering-college-board-s-billion-dollar-grip-on-education-the-deep
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-loopcast-5671162/uncovering-college-board-s-billion-dollar-grip-on-education-the-deep.md
Podcast: [The LOOPcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-loopcast-5671162)
Published: 2026-03-05T21:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://rss.com/podcasts/the-loopcast/2619968
Audio file: https://content.rss.com/episodes/377389/2619968/the-loopcast/2026_03_11_15_48_54_f300b737-bae6-41b4-80da-f7ad03ef1a32.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-loopcast-5671162/episodes/uncovering-college-board-s-billion-dollar-grip-on-education-the-deep
Duration seconds: 981

## Resource

For over a century, the College Board has shaped who gets into college – and what “success” even means to American kids. In this episode of The Deep, Erika traces how a nonprofit testing company became a billion-dollar gatekeeper, why standards have quietly shifted, and why elite universities are now scrambling back to testing after going test-optional. Is the system ensuring merit – or masking its own decline? Let’s look at the data. Timestamps: 0:00 - College Board: The gatekeeper of American education 1:06 - College Board’s unsettling origin 4:35 - College Board takes over universities 6:47 - “Aptitude” controversy 8:49 - College Board cashes in (big time) 10:00 - Becoming the gatekeeper 12:24 - How do we escape the College Board matrix? Watch The Deep on Zeale: https://zeale.co/podcasts/the-deep

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## Transcript

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