Strong Exam Results Mean Big College Savings

State School Superintendent Levi Bachmeier said North Dakota students’ performance on Advanced Placement exams could save them more than $4.1 million in college tuition costs.

Newly published data on North Dakota students’ 2025 AP exam results show 69.5 percent of students scored a 3 or better on their test, using a scale of 1 to 5. A score of 3 or better is needed to qualify for North Dakota college credit in that subject.

Advanced Placement courses are electives that give high school students an opportunity for intensive study of chosen subjects. More than two dozen courses are available across North Dakota. The most popular are biology, English language and composition, psychology, U.S. history, and European history.

In the class of 2025, 1,690 North Dakota graduates took at least one AP exam, while 1,119 scored a 3 or better on their exam, a new report says. Twenty-two percent of graduates took at least one AP test.

The Department of Public Instruction has pushed financial incentives for North Dakota high school students to take AP exams for the past decade, under a program called Leveraging the Senior Year. It pays exam fees for any student’s first exam in English, mathematics, science, and computer science.  If a student is eligible for free or reduced-price school meals, they may have their test fees paid for up to four exams in those subjects.

When the North Dakota Legislature endorsed Leveraging the Senior Year in 2015, 1,038 high school students took at least one AP exam in high school, and 722 scored a 3 or better. Those numbers have increased 63 percent and 55 percent, respectively, during the decade.

The $4.1 million in college tuition savings assumes the 2025 AP exam scores of 3 or better equals 11,157 potential college credits, at a cost of $369.33 per credit.