Eligibility for 2024-25 Access Plans
College Board takes careful steps to facilitate access to our recruitment and enrollment solutions. To safeguard student data and privacy, only mission-aligned nonprofit organizations and their authorized users are eligible to use these services based on this policy.
Eligibility Requirements
Eligibility for Access Plan subscriptions require both qualifying as an eligible organization and committing to specific use of the services. Whether an organization or program is approved to use our Access Plan is at the discretion of 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 an Access Plan must qualify under one of three categories, defined below:
- Nonprofit Higher Education Institution
- Nonprofit Scholarship Provider
- Government Agency
Nonprofit Higher Education Institution
- Nonprofit 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 licensure and certificate programs
- Nonprofit colleges and universities outside the U.S. that are accredited institution-wide by a government-recognized accrediting agency
Nonprofit Scholarship Provider
Nonprofit 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 its appointed commission or office, that is responsible for the oversight and administration of educational programs that offer no-cost scholarships and/or financial aid, or provide information regarding nonprofit higher education
Appropriate Use for Eligible Organizations and Programs
Eligible organizations and their programs sending messages to students through Access Plan services, including both Search and Connections, adhere to messaging on one or more of the following approved topics:
- Information about nonprofit 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 nonprofit secondary or postsecondary education and/or activities
- Information about accessing higher education, including information about particular types of nonprofit higher education institutions or their academic degree programs
- Offers of direct admission to nonprofit 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 (b) 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 (e.g., content that invites students to purchase a product, program, or service that requires payment other than routine admission fees, tuition fees, or application fees).
Messaging that promotes the following is not allowable:
- For-fee services (direct or indirect) that are independent of the nonprofit higher education institution’s academic degree or related licensure or certificate programs
- For-fee special campus programming (coursework, research, etc.) that is not part of a continuing academic degree program offered through a nonprofit higher education institution