How to Profit Off High School Students

Haunting in Red – Michai Sanders

Andy Vitello

With the unfortunate rise of consumers caring about their data privacy, it has become increasingly difficult to profit from it, especially when it involves minors. Pesky laws like Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act prevent companies from distributing consumers’ personal data in an “unfair or deceptive manner” (“Federal Trade”). On the bright side, these laws are ambiguous, so they’re arguable — thanks, lobbying. Profiting off high school students is a tricky task, but if you follow these steps, it’s easier than stealing candy from a baby.

Step 1: Register as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. People inherently love nonprofits because they associate them with organizations that benefit the general public, like the Salvation Army, Feeding America, or St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. You don’t have to benefit the general public, but people must believe you do. Advertise a hollow statement on your website like “Our mission [is] to connect students to college success and opportunity” and throw in a token phrase like support students, equity in education, and promote excellence to seal the deal (College Board Careers). In actuality, the only reason you’re a nonprofit is so you can avoid taxes and become eligible for government grant money. It’s a win-win situation… for you! If you don’t plan on helping the public in any significant ways (and really, why would you?), then make sure you use vague and exaggerated language when explaining your “impact.” Say you apply your “research and measurement capabilities to guide millions of students to college,” (College Board Foundation) even though the college enrollment rate has generally decreased each year, dropping from a 41% attendance rate in 2010 to 38% in 2021 (“COE”). Again, you don’t have to make an impact, but you need people believing you do. Who will actually look up the decreasing college enrollment rate? If social media can successfully delude the population, then trust us, you can too.    

Step 2: Eliminate competition. In a perfectly competitive market, a firm must price its products based on how much a consumer will pay for them. In this market structure, other firms will drop their prices, and consequently, you must drop yours. You also must differentiate from the competition by investing in customer service or providing superior quality; unfortunately, this all costs a lot of money. This is not an ideal situation for you. Instead, you should become one of the only options for your customers; this means you set the price and you determine the quality. Make connections with government officials so you can eliminate competition and avoid those annoying laws. Perhaps you appoint the former governor of West Virginia as the President of your nonprofit and utilize his connections for your benefit. Monopolize the education industry by requiring students to take a standardized test in 20 states (Heimbach), ensure that your advanced placement programs are the only courses that count for college credit in 35 states (“Statewide AP”), and make families fill out a financial aid application that more than 300 colleges and universities require (Kerr). Of course, either the state or the student will pay you for each of these forced offerings. If one of your irritating competitors tries signing an exclusive contract with a state in hopes of driving you out, aggressively lobby and reclaim dominance. For instance, if your only competitor for standardized testing wants a contract with Michigan, outbid them by paying $17.1 million and still make money on the deal (Higgins). Thank you, American capitalism! Who said the American Dream doesn’t exist anymore? 

Step 3: Charge ridiculous fees for everything. Make students pay $60 for registering. If they sign up less than a month away, make them pay an extra $30. Maybe they cancel; charge $25… or $35 if they do it last minute since they don’t have a choice. Oh look, they’re moving! Charge $25 since you must change their testing location. The overachiever wants a score report; charge $16, but don’t hand over the answers to the questions — only provide the question’s concept and if they got it right or wrong (that gives them too much bang for their buck). Do they want the report sooner? That’s another $31. Let’s say a student suspects their score is incorrect and wants it graded manually; that’s another easy $55 in your pocket (“SAT Test Fees”). Remember, you also monopolized the advanced placement classes. You must profit from this somehow, so have students take an end-of-year exam for $98. If they’re outside of the United States, make them pay $128 to $146 (since shipping paper costs a lot these days). Oh no, the student didn’t sign up for the exam in time! They better learn their lesson, so charge them an extra $40. A high schooler doesn’t show up for their exam (how irresponsible!); tack on $40 since you already printed it out (“AP Exam Fees”). Let’s not forget about your financial aid forms that hundreds of colleges now require. Even though sending these forms to colleges costs next to nothing, make families pay $25 to send their forms to one school and then $16 for each additional college after that (“What is the Cost”). If you’re in this business, you must appreciate free money.

Step 4: License student data. IMPORTANT NOTE: you can’t sell student data (remember those pesky laws?) — you must license it. Have your PR team remind people of this difference and make it sound like selling and licensing are two very different things. Perhaps your spokesperson will claim, “A license is not a transfer of ownership but rather a right to use, under tightly controlled circumstances” (DeGeurin). What circumstances, might you ask? Great question! Don’t say that the only difference is that you decide what information to send, because that communication is way too transparent for your blissfully ignorant customers. Make sure you only provide a range of standardized testing scores so it looks like the information you provide is vague and not too personal. In reality, you will provide each student’s name, race, parents’ education, and range of PSAT or SAT scores, all at 47 cents per student (Belkin). In theory, a college could search for white female students who play golf on the West Coast, scored 1300 to 1400 on the SAT, have an interest in medicine, and whose parents did not attend college. Colleges, universities, and scholarship programs love this data, so over 1,900 will purchase 2-2.5 million names each year, making you upwards of $120,000 (Belkin). You might wonder: why do colleges really want this data? By using it, schools can market to students who will likely apply but will unlikely get admitted. Why would they do that? Here’s why: after rejecting the weaker applicants, the college can advertise a lower acceptance rate, making them appear more prestigious to students and parents (DeGeurin). Slimy? Sure. Profitable for you and the colleges? Definitely.

Step 5: Take full advantage of grant money. You’re a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, which means you have a lot of opportunities for free money, especially from the government. Beg the United States government to cover your inflated exam fees for the underprivileged. Congratulations! You’ll receive $90 million and you can advertise that you’re dedicated to “equity” in education. Ask around for another $10 million in public money and get an additional $5 to $6 million in direct government funding every single year. Obviously, you don’t need the funding since you’ll make $500 million in yearly revenue from your advanced placement courses alone, but again, don’t turn down free cash (Dorman). All in all, government grants will make up 18% of your total revenue — that’s a decent chunk of money given that your total revenue will be $1.1 billion. However, you don’t want the public getting suspicious, so let’s bring the PR team back and say that this money is “minimal compared to [our] operating revenue” (Dorman). In other words, the $900 million you’ll make is minimal compared to the $200 million of free money you will receive. While the spokesperson is here, have them re-emphasize that your “revenue is reinvested into fee waivers and in programs that expand educational opportunities for all students” (Paterno). That’s not a lie since you will cover fees for underserved communities, but luckily you already received $100 million from the government and other organizations for this purpose. Throw in an extra $29 million (or about 2.6% of your total revenue) to make yourself look good (Paterno). In the end, you’ll claim you “open the doors of college to a much broader range of students,” but you will do nearly all of it with someone else’s money (College Board Foundation).   

Step 6: Multiply your profits by siphoning money out of the United States and investing it in the stock market in the Caribbean. You’re a nonprofit, which means you don’t have the burden of taxes in the United States for your revenue. However, if you invest in the United States, the greedy government will steal a hefty percentage of your hard-earned profits. Even though they’ll subsidize you, don’t return the favor! Instead, siphon $162 million into the stock market in the Caribbean where there are no taxes for investment profits. Buy into some more successful hedge funds and confidential investors, and you’ll quintuple $135 million into a whopping $675 million in only four years. In addition to the Caribbean, keep some secret funds in bank accounts on the African island of Mauritius; you’ll never know when you may need it (Paterno). Since this cash is offshore, don’t tell anyone about the specifics — the IRS can be nosy. Instead of putting this money towards promoting education in the U.S., pay your hardworking CEO $1.8 million and your industrious President $1 million; after all, they deserve it more than the struggling students and underpaid teachers. Heck, fly the whole executive team first class everywhere — you have the money! (Paterno).

By now, you will have successfully profited off high school students. By collecting their information when signing up for standardized testing or advanced placement courses, they’ll believe they have a better chance at going to college, but in actuality, you’re giving them false hope at top schools — you don’t care, though, since you’re making money from it. You can make more money by accepting generous funding from China so they can influence certain parts of your curriculum, but we don’t have time to get into that (Peterson). The point is that there are many more money-making tactics, even if the public believes they’re unethical. If you have any questions, reach us via email and we might get back to you in 5-7 business days — we don’t waste too much money on customer support.                                                

Works Cited

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