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Comment by avs733 | Hacker News Reader

this is a perfect example of why governmental services are so important - even if they are often run poorly. Without them, dis-equities inherently perpetuate due to external incentives.

The SAT is treated as a standardized test but it, as you note, is inaccessible to many. It is not government run or organized. I've found, from teaching undergraduates, that most of the students who go to college presume that everyone takes the SATs, that it is government administered, and that it is free.

compare this to the, still far from perfect and problematic in other ways, centralized university admissions testing system in many other countries.

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Wow. As someone that isn't in the US, but grew up watching a lot of US TV, I had this same assumption. How the fuck is the primary method of judging student admission to University not a government run service? Wow.

As you say, contrast that to my experience where everyone took University Entrance exams in their final year of school. Score over X and you have the right to go to a university. Don't score high enough? The university can still choose to admit you at their discretion.

> How the fuck is the primary method of judging student admission to University not a government run service? Wow.

Probably the same reason that the Federal Reserve Bank is not a government entity (they only have a meaningless government "oversight board") even though it loans all money to the US Government with interest and has never been audited.

I really hate this meme. The federal reserve is very much under the purview of the legislature. If the legislature isn't choosing to act in the way you would like, well, then that's a completely separate complaint. Implying that the federal reserve is somehow independent from the government is dishonest.

You think the Board of Governors is meaningless? Do you realize the Fed turns over interest it earns to the US Treasury? What an odd thing to bring up in this context.

Now that we know that you have a dislike of the Federal Reserve system, you didn't actually answer the question by stating a reason. What would "the same reason" be?

How can you seriously believe the Fed isn't a government entity? I'm legitimately struggling to understand how you came to such a misguided conclusion.

How can you believe it is? I'm legitimately struggling to understand how you came to such a misguided conclusion.

Because it:

- was created by the US government

- is ran by US government appointees, who are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate

- has to make annual reports to Congress

- returns all its profits to the US government

- describes itself as a government agency. [0]

Does the Fed have more independence than, say, the Department of Agriculture? Yes, but an independent government agency is still a government entity.

[0] "The Federal Reserve, like many other central banks, is an independent government agency..." https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_12799.htm

Because beliefs tend to emerge from ideology as opposed to the other way around. Then those beliefs become the api for interacting with information

The ownership structure of the Federal Reserve's 12 constituent reserve banks makes the Fed a mix of private and public banking. Commercial banks hold shares in each of the reserve banks. As shareholders, they elect 6 of the 9 regional directors. So while it's largely a governmental organization, ownership and influence from private banking is certainly present.

> How the fuck is the primary method of judging student admission to University not a government run service?

Because it's only de facto the primary method, as evidenced by MIT dropping it for a while there. They didn't need government permission to do that. Even public universities here generally have a high degree of autonomy regarding such things.

MIT is private unlike most of the other land-grant schools.

> How the fuck is the primary method of judging student admission to University not a government run service?

Well, I mean.. America is experimental capitalism. Why run anything government when it can be for profit and 'the market' will solve any and all issues with it?

It turns out 'the market' will skew in favor of making a small amount of people rich over actually improving the lives of anyone, but hey, that's freedom baby!

They're really precious about it though, so don't criticise this system out loud.

That's nice and all but the College Board is nonprofit and they administer the SAT.

It’s a multibillion dollar nonprofit who’s ceo makes over a million a year.

Do with that what you will.

College Board is a nonprofit organization[0] and thus is partially funded by the government to say nothing of any other grants they may have received. ACT Inc is the same way.

Instead of funding The One True Test, the US government partially funds every test competing to be the best college placement test.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_Board

How does being a nonprofit imply "partially funded by the government"?

Tax exemptions.

Assuming you claim tax exemptions annually, are you partially funded by the government? :-P

To a much, much lesser degree, yes.

Uk qualification exams (GCSE and ALevels) are run by private boards. (Cambridge and Edexcel are the two big ones). These are effectively entrance exams, in that university offers are strongly dependent on them.

many schools are not public as with the SAT which is also "not-for-profit"

I wonder how one could codify a regulation for schools requiring entrance test to provide "reasonable" accommodations for prospective students to take it; like some parent comments mentioned not everyone can feasibly get to a testing center

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