Access Plan Eligibility & Usage Policy
Eligibility for Access Plans and related features and services for the 2024-2025 Subscription Term (9/1/24-8/31/25) and 2025-2026 Subscription Term (9/1/25-6/30/26).
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 policy is the first step in managing access and compliance for all services within our subscription plans, including both Search, Connections and other services that are part of the subscription plans.
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 plans is at the discretion of College Board. College Board conducts a review of an organization’s eligibility on an annual basis and may require an organization to provide evidence of compliance with any of the eligibility or usage conditions at any time in a subscription term. Failure to comply with terms and policies may result in the termination of access as well as the loss of eligibility.
A. Eligible Organizations
Organizations (and their related departments or programs) seeking a subscription plan must qualify under one of three categories, as further detailed below:
- Non-Profit Higher Education Institution
- Non-Profit Scholarship Provider
- Government Agency
Non-Profit Higher Education Institutions are defined as:
- 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 Providers are defined as:
- Non-profit scholarship providers that hold 501(c)(3) status. They must:
- Provide a scholarship as the primary activity, which may be disbursed directly to students (no requirement to disburse directly to a postsecondary institution).
- Not require any fees for students for scholarship consideration.
- Be eligible under IRS NTEE Code “B82-Scholarships, Student Financial Aid Services, Awards”.
Government Agencies are defined as:
- 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.
B. Appropriate Use by Eligible Organizations and Programs:
Eligible organizations and their programs sending messages to students through subscription plan services, including both Search and Connections, must 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), summer or pre-college programs administered by the college or university, 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 aboutparticular typesof 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 (1) 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 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 or service which requires payment other than routine admissions or tuition fees or asks a student to fill out a survey on university branding, etc.)
Messaging that promotes the following are prohibited:
- Sponsorships of or outreach about a leadership or pre-college program administered in partnership with a for-profit organization, even if the message is from a non-profit entity
- For-fee or commercial products or services (direct or indirect) that are independent of the non-profit higher education institution’s academic degree, summer or pre-college programming, or related licensure or certificate programs
- Marketing or research surveys
Questions about eligibility or usage policies can be sent to [email protected]