Burlap Sack: The price of professional program entry tests

I’m sure all of us students have thought to ourselves that university is expensive at least once. The release of the UCP budget brought up many concerns about the rising cost of tuition, given that it already is quite expensive to obtain a degree. Universities are starting to be run more like businesses than places of education, and anything attached to post-secondary seems to be aimed at taking money from students rather than encouraging education, including tuition, cost of books, the high salaries of deans and administration versus salaries of sessional professors, and much more.

In addition to the cost of tuition and books, standardized testing is overpriced. I recently took the LSAT, which made me realize that these tests— which are required for admission into some graduate programs — are really expensive. I got off easy; it cost me $175 USD to register, and I spent approximately $200 CAD on prep materials. The MCAT costs $315 USD, and once you account for prep materials and potentially prep classes, the cost gets a lot higher. Again, the costs do not need to be this high, especially since these tests are going digital, so the administrations will no longer have to pay for printing. 

So on top of our tuition payments, for entrance into law school, med school, or even for some types of grad school, we must shell out at least an extra couple hundred dollars. This might not seem too bad to some people, but consider the effect on students with a lower socioeconomic status.

High costs create a barrier to accessing higher levels of education, especially since these tests are for really competitive programs, and those who can spend more money on prep materials have a chance of doing better. If not, they can afford to take the test multiple times. In this way, the high prices of these tests allow institutions to gate-keep, adding one more barrier for those trying to move up the social hierarchy. It’s unfair, unnecessary, and elitist, and aims to preserve the status quo.

At the end of the day, university is a business, designed to milk as much money out of the student as possible. The goal is no longer to create educated students and to broaden horizons, but rather to fill the pockets of the deans. I long for the day when education for the sake of education is valued, and when I don’t have to spend hundreds on a test just to even have a chance to get into the program of my choosing.