State Senate proposes cuts to funding for advanced placement exams – WRAL.com

Advanced Placement classes are often seen as stepping stones
to college – both academically and financially. Students who successfully pass
the end-of-year exams can earn college credit in high school.

Right now, the North Carolina Department of Public
Instruction covers
the entire cost of for AP tests, as long as the student is enrolled in the
AP course that semester. The same goes for International Baccalaureate tests.

State lawmakers in the Senate no longer wants to foot the
bill, based on the recently released Senate
budget proposal.

Coverage of the $99 fee could save families hundreds of
dollars per college course.

For example, tuition for
a 3-credit hour course at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill costs $877.38.
If a high school attains a college-accepted score on the AP exam, that could be
a savings of $778.38.

The budget proposal released this week would cut $14 million each year
toward paying for students’ advanced placement tests but reserve the remaining
$4.7 million for economically disadvantaged students.

The
state has a specific definition for “economically
disadvantaged” to include students eligible for free meals, those experiencing
homelessness and Medicaid recipients.

About 760,000 students fit that category in December 2024, according
to DPI data. That’s 48.7% of the state’s more than 1.5 million public school
students.

“I
don’t think a lot of kids would be able to pay for [the AP exam]. They’re
trying to get to the point where they can make more money…and get into a
better college,” AP student Parker Jenkins told WRAL. “I think we should
probably keep funding it.”

Andy Crane has tutored
students for more than a decade.

“An AP class is
typically going to be a little more challenging, a little more demanding than
your standard academic class, and it’s geared towards giving students kind of a
crack at college level demand,” Crane said. “You’re going to save a pretty
substantial amount, even with just one class…that’s going to save you tuition.
That’s going to save you cost of textbooks down the road.”

AP student Yousif Elagha said he gets better
opportunities by taking AP classes.

“It gives me a better shot of getting into better schools,”
Elagha said.

NCDPI does not currently pay for AP Exams taken by private
school students or homeschooled students.

According to NCDPI, 84,372 North Carolina public school
students took AP exams in 2024.

Senate
Majority Leader Phil Berger did not respond to WRAL’s request for an interview.
Monday, he and other Republicans have justified the various cuts in the
budget as a way to get rid of what they see as unnecessary government spending.

“I’d like to thank these folks, and I’d like to thank
also staff, our budget development team, the nonpartisan staff, for all the
work that’s been done over the past weeks to get us to this point and our members,
particularly those at the subcommittee level, they have taken a fine tooth comb to area budgets to try to
find as much cost savings as possible, from eliminating obsolete programs to
slashing some of the bloated portions of the bureaucracy, all in an effort that
has served people state of North Carolina,” Sen. Berger said in a news
conference Monday.

The
proposal would also end a decade-long partnership between the state Department
of Public Instruction and the College Board aimed at increasing access to advanced
coursework.

According to a statement from College Board, the partnership has worked to provide access to AP opportunities for all students. The statement read in part:

We’re closely monitoring the proposed Senate budget that seeks to eliminate the AP Partnership, which provides professional development to teachers, counselors and administrators, and seeks to reduce AP Exam funding to low-income students only, providing no assistance to middle class families as the NC General Assembly has done since 2015. 

We remain committed to working with schools and districts across North Carolina to ensure continued access to AP opportunities.

Since
that partnership was formed in 2014, enrollment in AP courses has grown to
97,137 students from 77,392 students in 2015. In 2024, 84,732 students took
155,935 AP exams. About two-thirds of those exams resulted in scores generally
accepted for course credit at colleges, according to a 2024 report to the General Assembly.

AP exam participation
has increased by 26% statewide over the last ten years, according to NCDPI.

Adjacent
programs – International Baccalaureate and Advanced International Certificate of Education
– are facing the possibility of similar cuts.

The
budget includes a $1.8 million cut each year toward paying for students’
international baccalaureate tests, reserving the remaining $500,000 for
economically disadvantaged students.