ETS Acquires ACT, Consolidating Control Over College and Career Readiness Testing

The architecture of American educational assessment underwent a seismic shift on June 30, 2026, as the Educational Testing Service (ETS) announced its acquisition of ACT. The merger unites two of the most influential measurement organizations in the world, fundamentally rewiring the pipeline that connects K-12 education, college admissions, and workforce readiness. By absorbing the organization behind America’s standardized college admissions test, ETS—best known globally for administering the GRE and TOEFL exams—is consolidating a highly fragmented market. The combined entity will reach an estimated 35 million individuals annually, creating a testing behemoth with unparalleled influence over how academic and professional skills are evaluated.[2]

The acquisition marks another dramatic chapter for ACT, which only two years ago transitioned from a historic nonprofit into a for-profit company after being acquired by Los Angeles-based private equity firm Nexus Capital Management. According to ETS CEO Amit Sevak, ETS actively approached Nexus to initiate the buyout, viewing the widely recognized ACT brand as a critical vehicle for expanding its national footprint. While financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, ETS, which operates as a nonprofit, stated that it plans to keep the ACT subsidiary for-profit in the near term, though Sevak indicated its legal status could eventually be reevaluated.

For ETS, the acquisition is less about dominating the traditional college admissions space and more about capturing the emerging market for lifelong skills verification. Sevak has publicly set an ambitious organizational goal to "ready 100 million people for the next generation of jobs." By integrating ACT, ETS believes it can accelerate that timeline to 2035 or sooner. "Every student deserves a strong education, a fair shot at college, and a path to a good job," Sevak said, emphasizing that the merger will help institutions and employers grapple with shifting workforce demands in an economy increasingly disrupted by artificial intelligence.[2]

ACT brings a highly specific and lucrative set of assets to the ETS portfolio: deep, entrenched relationships with state governments. Currently, 17 states use the ACT as their official, federally mandated high school assessment, guaranteeing a steady stream of test-takers regardless of college application trends. Furthermore, ACT owns WorkKeys, a prominent career-readiness assessment and credentialing system that awards the National Career Readiness Certificate. As the federal government and state legislatures increasingly push for career and technical education over traditional four-year degrees, the WorkKeys infrastructure provides ETS with a turnkey solution for the blue-collar and technical workforce sectors.[1]

The merger arrives at a precarious moment for the standardized testing industry, which has spent the last six years navigating existential threats. During the height of the pandemic, thousands of colleges and universities dropped their SAT and ACT requirements, sparking a "test-optional" movement that severely dented testing revenues. Even as some elite universities have recently reinstated testing mandates, the landscape remains permanently altered. Currently, only about 47 percent of high school students take the SAT, 36 percent take the ACT, and roughly a third take no entrance exam at all.[1][5]

Both organizations have felt the financial strain of this pullback. Scott Marion, a principal learning associate at the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment, noted that both ETS and ACT have "been struggling a little bit in recent years" as higher education reevaluates the necessity of standardized metrics. ETS itself has undergone significant restructuring, including a series of layoffs that resulted in more than 700 job losses late last year as graduate programs increasingly dropped GRE requirements. By joining forces, the two organizations hope to achieve economies of scale that neither could manage alone, with ACT CEO Steve Tapp noting the merger provides a platform to fulfill their mission at an unprecedented scale.[1][3]

A central pillar of the newly combined company's strategy will be the aggressive deployment of artificial intelligence. ETS has invested heavily in AI-enabled measurement capabilities over the past two years, developing highly automated scoring systems designed to evaluate complex, open-ended responses. Sevak noted that ETS utilizes human oversight to ensure its AI models do not inadvertently introduce new biases, and the organization plans to integrate this technology into ACT's testing suite. This technological leap is intended to make the "invisible skills that students have become more visible," allowing for more nuanced evaluations than traditional multiple-choice bubbles can provide.[3]

The consolidation also sets the stage for a massive clash with the College Board, the organization behind the SAT and Advanced Placement (AP) exams. In a twist of industry irony, ETS actually administered the SAT on behalf of the College Board for decades, until the two organizations parted ways in 2024. Now, ETS directly owns the College Board's primary competitor. This dynamic transforms the college admissions landscape into a duopoly where ETS and the College Board will fiercely compete not just for college applicants, but for lucrative state-level testing contracts and workforce credentialing programs.[1]

Among the roughly 1.38 million students who take the ACT annually, the acquisition has sparked a mixture of cautious optimism and distinct anxiety. On popular online forums like Reddit's r/ACT community, students dissected the news in real-time. Some users expressed relief that ACT was moving away from private equity ownership and back under the umbrella of an education-focused nonprofit, hoping the shift might yield better free practice materials and expanded international testing centers. ETS's massive global network, built through decades of administering the TOEFL, could theoretically make the ACT far more accessible to international applicants.[1][4]

However, other students voiced the inherent powerlessness of navigating a rapidly consolidating educational system. One applicant captured the prevailing sentiment by describing students as "plankton being carried along" by testing giants, expressing concern over whether the merger might alter the exam's difficulty, scoring curves, or format. While ETS and ACT have assured customers that there will be no immediate disruption to products or services in the near term, the sheer scale of the new entity means that any future changes to the test will unilaterally impact millions of educational trajectories.[4]

As the ink dries on the acquisition, the broader implications for American education are just beginning to surface. The merger highlights a fundamental pivot in how educational value is measured: moving away from pure academic aptitude and toward concrete workforce readiness. With 10 percent of recent university graduates unemployed and 40 percent underemployed, testing organizations are racing to prove their relevance to employers, not just admissions officers. By bringing the ACT and WorkKeys under the ETS umbrella, the testing industry is betting its future on the premise that the next generation of assessments will evaluate not just whether a student is ready for college, but whether they are ready for the economy.[2]