SUHSD picks up the the tab for AP tests.

The road to college is filled with standardized tests and prerequisites. In California, students must complete the A-G requirements, a checklist of high school courses, to meet the minimum eligibility required by UCs and CSUs. Nationwide, there are the college-readiness SATs, which are priced at $54.50 per test. SAT subject-specific tests run $26 to take, and an additional $20 for every additional subject.

Then there are the Advanced Placement exams, which cost $92 per subject.

It’s one of the highest test costs, but high scores can allow students to skip some university-level classes – a better value than taking a college course.

For low-income and high-achieving students, help with financing all these test fees comes from different places. In 2016, the federal AP Test Fee Program reduced the price for AP tests to $31 for students who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch. But this year, that program is gone.

It’s been consolidated, along with 49 other educational programs, under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act into funding that gets distributed as block grants.

Salinas Union High School District, the largest recipient in Monterey County, is taking part of its $1 million share for this school year and covering all its students’ AP test fees, regardless of income level. SUHSD has seen an increase of 364 new AP test-takers since 2014. Last year, out of the 1,749 students who took AP tests, 51.8 percent qualified for free and reduced-price lunch, according to district records – but this year, all students’ fees will be waived by SUHSD.

Alisal High School Principal Ernesto Garcia believes waiving AP testing fees for every student, regardless of income, increases the chances of students getting passing scores. (For AP tests, that’s a three, four or five.)

“Since 2014, Alisal has been increasing how many students [pass],” Garcia says. “Last year, our passing scores were great.” The numbers show some progress: In the 2015-16 school year, 29 more Alisal High students earned scores of three to five on AP tests than the year before.

Collectively, Alisal High students who took AP tests in 2015-16 scored high enough to earn enough college credit to either skip or advance into the equivalent of 275 classes.

Considering the yearly tuition costs alone of attending Central Coast universities like CSU Monterey Bay and UC Santa Cruz – $5,472 and $13,515 respectively, according to their websites – waiving test fees maybe the step ahead future college students need.