Last year, students were able to reap the benefits of free AP exams and a plethora of low-cost county and school-run summer courses. During this summer and in the foreseeable future, students may be disappointed to know many of these courses have undergone changes to their pricing and financial policies.
Recent price changes have been made to AP exams, summer enrichment programs and summer credit courses at the school to conserve funds and address financial complications.
AP exams, which were completely free last year, will see a slight change to pricing policies. In 2024, about 300 students at the school opted to take the exam but did not show up on test day, wasting the money that was given to the school from the county for those people. “Last year, MCPS covered all of the fees to College Board for students that did not show up and it ended up being a tremendous amount of money,” Assistant Principal Eileen Gardner said.
As a result, MCPS is aiming to reduce the amount of wasted funds by implementing a $40 fee for students who sign up to take an exam but do not attend. Students who opt out of the exam or sign up and take the exam will not be charged. “At this point, If you do not know if you are taking the exam you should definitely click no, because we can always change it to yes,” Gardner said.
The price of week-long summer enrichment courses provided by the school was also lower than in previous years. During the renovations that took place over the summer, enrichment classes were unable to be taught inside the school, so the longer in-person classes were replaced with shorter online courses. “This year…we did virtual one-hour classes and they were $100 each,” summer program coordinator and social studies teacher Christina Rice said.
In recent years, the responsibility of running summer credit courses has been shifted completely from individual schools to the county. As a result, the price of all summer classes eligible for graduation credits will cost the county’s base price of about $350. “I have been the coordinator of the program since 2011 and throughout the past 13 years there has definitely been a change in the courses we are able to offer,” Rice said.
Junior Grant McGraw chose to take two full courses this summer, which ran up his cost total . “This was the first year where they added a bunch of money to the classes making it over $350 per semester, so overall I had to pay over $1,400,” McGraw said.
McGraw was baffled by this price and thinks it may have a discriminatory effect on some students. “I do not think it’s fair to some students obviously because I think it’s just giving more resources to kids who have more money,” McGraw said.
