So, express scoring for the TOEFL has disappeared again.  As you may recall, first it was offered in December for $99.  Then it went away.  Then in February it returned, costing $149.  Now it is gone again.

Update:  It is back!

Some of the supplementary TOEFL fees have been hiked. It now costs $29 to send a score report to each recipient beyond the four that are selected before test day. That’s an increase of $4 per recipient.

Express registration (seven days or less before the test) now costs $49. That’s a $9 increase.

I don’t know when these increases were implemented, but it must have been quite recently, as they are only viewable within the user account. The TOEFL website still lists the old prices.

Since the website lists incorrect information I am unsure if other supplementary fees (score review, reinstatement of cancelled scores, returned payments, etc) have also been increased.

Update:  A reader mentioned that the cost of rescheduling a test has increased by $9 (to $69).  I can’t confirm this myself since I don’t have any tests to reschedule…

I caught a bit of flak in my earlier post for failing to mention, in my post about the scrubbing of references to DEI from the ETS website, that ETS has contracts with the Department of Education that last year paid them about $67 million dollars. That equaled about 5% of their overall operating revenues.  Those revenues, one imagines, were a consideration when that decision was made.  As we all know, the new American president and his team don’t like DEI.  I should have mentioned that. Mea culpa.

But the ETS team may have jumped the gun. President Trump has begun efforts to wind down the Department of Education, so those revenues might be impacted in any case.

I’ll end with a bit of editorializing.  Here you go:

It seems to me that organizations which spend the next four years laying low in an effort to avoid being noticed run the risk of losing their seat at the table in the post-Trump world.  The leadership team at ETS has often mentioned their dream of “rebuilding the pillars of education” together with the Carnegie Institute.  Opportunities to do that sort of work may end up falling on other shoulders.  So to speak.

Earlier this month, the “Our Leadership” section of the ETS website was reshuffled.  The most notable change was the removal of Chief Diversity Officer Ida Jackson Woods from the public leadership roster.  An individual holding that position had been included on the leadership page since at least 2019.

Two days ago, all content on the ETS website describing its commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging were removed.  It appears that no references to DEIB policies remain on the website.  Indeed, even a single-sentence reference to DEI on the “About ETS” section of the site has been removed.

To view the DEI content as it existed before its removal, you can check out this archive.

Here’s an article from the PIE by Polly Nash about the increased cost of taking the TOEFL iBT in the European Union. It includes this quote from an ETS rep:

“We recognise the importance of affordability for our test takers and remain committed to delivering the highest value through our assessments and services.”

That’s nice to hear.

My impression is that while Pearson, the British Council and IDP Education have all been remitting sales taxes to the relevant authorities for some time, ETS has only just started doing so.

But I could be wrong.

Here’s a digression:

The pricing of tests that operate on a global scale is a tricky thing. Test takers in some markets have to deal with price hikes every year. Sometimes they see the cost of a given test increase two or three times in a single calendar year. Test takers in other markets are mostly immune to price hikes. Accordingly, students occasionally feel like they are subsidizing test takers in more competitive and lucrative markets. I have a lot of admiration for companies that have implemented a single fixed price for everyone on the planet.

I’m now seeing big TOEFL price hikes across the board.  Below find a list of increases in the countries I track (minus EU countries, which I wrote about a few days ago).

A few things stand out.  The biggest hike was a $35 increase in Iran, where the test now costs $300.  Neighboring Iraq saw a $15 increase and a new total price of $295.  The test now costs a whopping $470 in Switzerland (a $20 increase).

Note that the cost is the same whether the test is taken at a test center, or at the test taker’s home.

The full list of increases is as follows:

• Afghanistan  – $10
• Argentina – $15
• Australia – $15
• Azerbaijan – $20
• Brazil – $5
• Canada – $9
• Colombia – $13
• Congo (DR) – $10
• Georgia – $10
• Ghana – $5
• Guatemala – $15
• Hong Kong – $10
• Iceland – $10
• Iran – $35
• Iraq – $15
• Israel – $10
• Jordan – $9
• Kenya – $15
• Kosovo – $10
• Mexico – $5
• Mongolia – $15
• Morocco – $15
• New Zealand – $5
• Pakistan – $25
• Palestinian Territories – $9 (Amit, why?)
• Peru – $15
• Switzerland – $20
• Tajikistan – $5
• Thailand – $10
• Turkey – $13
• UAE – $15
• UK – $10

Prices surely increased elsewhere, but I don’t track the whole planet.