Advanced Placement World History classes will come at no cost to Nixa High School students in the 2024-2025 school year. AP classes can be a financial strain for students, even with reduced prices available. With this initiative, NHS hopes to introduce more students to AP than ever before.
AP Coordinator Erin Livengood said Nixa’s decision was to increase enrollment opportunities.
“From what I understand, [administration] wanted people to challenge themselves and not have [finances] be a hurdle,” Livengood said. “Also, there’s a lot of studies out there that say if you dip your toe in AP, you might be surprised how well you do.”
The policy has the potential to increase AP World History enrollment and get students interested in pursuing other AP classes. AP World History is one of the first AP classes students will take, per the Nixa curriculum. This increases the benefits of the price waiver for all students interested in AP.
AP World teacher Jose (Andres) Cecenas agrees with the policy.
“I think it’s awesome,” Cecenas said. “Someone not having that money and being allowed to go through the course, go through the rigor of taking a harder class, being [able to be] proud of what you do at the end.”
To help curb the cost, Nixa historically has had a reduced price to eligible students, but never before have they completely waived prices. In the case of AP Seminar, course prices are waived by $36 for students who receive free lunches. Even with price reductions, Cecenas said prices can still hinder many students.
“It shuts away the possibility–or the door–for a lot of low-income people to just be a part of it,” Cecenas said. “And maybe they can be successful, but you never reach those people because, again, there’s that barrier of the economic part.”
The cost of AP classes is largely due to exam costs. Only the AP World History exam will be waived this year. AP Seminar teacher, Rachel Lechner said there are different aspects of the price.
“AP classes are run by this organization, the College Board,” Lechner said. “The College Board employs the people who train the teachers for [the exam] and they employ graders for it.”
AP costs cover the creation of exams, the grading of exams, and teacher training, which can be extensive. Lechner attended 40 hours of summer training last summer to be able to teach her class.
“There were multiple sessions happening, and multiple people who were being paid to teach these sessions.” Lechner said. “There were meals that they fed us because we were there for so long.”
Similarly, Livengood had training for her AP Seminar exam grading position.
“They put a lot of training into it to make sure that every single person is grading the same,” Livengood said.
With all the training put into the precision of grading, and into teachers, steep prices are necessary to keep the College Board running. However, even with full-price exams, AP classes are still a low-cost alternative to taking the same classes in college. Livengood elaborates on the price differences of AP class equivalents in college.
“There is a financial benefit if the university that you’re going to takes the AP credit,” Livengood said. “I’m not sure what Missouri State’s current hour rate is, but it’s significantly more than $100 a credit hour.”