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Access Plan Eligibility

Eligibility for 2024-2025 Access Plans (in effect beginning September 1, 2024)

The College Board takes careful steps to facilitate access to our recruitment and enrollment solutions to only mission aligned non-profit organizations and their authorized users to protect student data and privacy. Our eligibility process is the first step in managing access and compliance for all services within our subscription plans. Beginning with the 2024-25 subscription year, eligibility for all services within the plans, including both Search and Connections, has been aligned into a single policy set forth below.

Eligibility Requirements 

Eligibility for subscriptions requires both qualifying as an eligible organization and committing to specific use of the services. Whether an organization or program is approved to use our subscription plan is at the discretion of the College Board. College Board may conduct a review of the organization’s eligibility at any time and may require an organization to provide evidence of compliance with any of the eligibility or usage conditions at any time in the subscription term. Failure to comply with terms and policies could result in the termination of participation.

Eligible Organizations

Organizations (and their related programs) seeking a subscription plan must qualify under one of three categories, as further detailed below: 

  1. Non-Profit Higher Education Institution
  2. Non-Profit Scholarship Provider
  3. Government Agency

Non-Profit Higher Education Institution

  • Non-profit U.S. colleges and universities accredited institution-wide by a U.S. Department of Education recognized accreditor to offer two-year associate and/or four-year bachelor's degrees, as well as their licensure and certificate programs
  • Non-profit colleges and universities outside the U.S. which are accredited institution-wide by a government recognized accrediting agency 

Non-Profit Scholarship Provider 

Non-profit scholarship providers that hold a 501(c)(3) status. They must:

  • Provide a scholarship as its primary activity, which may be disbursed directly to students (no requirement to disburse directly to a postsecondary institution). 
  • Not require membership fees for students for scholarship consideration. 
  • Be eligible under IRS NTEE Code “B82-Scholarships, Student Financial Aid Services, Awards” (if not, additional website review will be required).

Government Agency

A U.S. government agency or state agency, or their appointed commission or office, that is responsible for the oversight and administration of educational programs which are for the purpose of offering no-cost scholarships and/or financial aid or providing information regarding non-profit higher education

Appropriate Use for Eligible Organizations and Programs:

Eligible organizations and their programs sending messages to students through subscription plan services, including both Search and Connections, adhere to messaging on one or more of the following approved topics:

  • Information about non-profit college or university undergraduate institutions, including their academic degree programs (that lead to associate degrees, bachelor’s degrees, certificate, or licensure), admissions processes and free events, no-cost scholarship and financial aid opportunities, or general college information
  • Information about no-cost scholarship and financial aid opportunities that fund non-profit secondary or postsecondary education and/or activities
  • Information about accessing higher education, including information about particular types of non-profit higher education institutions or their academic degree programs
  • Offers of direct admission to non-profit higher education institutions where that offer may be conditioned only on the student (a) completing certain, limited administrative steps as may be reasonably required by the college or university and/or (2) the college or university reasonably confirming information about the student upon which it relied upon in making the decision to make an offer of direct admission

All messages must be educational and informational, and limited exclusively to above topics. Eligible organizations and their programs may not send messages for any other purposes, including, but not limited to, commercial purposes or market research (e.g., content which invites students to purchase a product, program or service which requires payment other than routine application for admission fees, tuition fees, application fees or market research surveys).