collegeboard is a scam (but not in the way you think it is)
ever since 2001, the "no child left behind" act, high school education in the usa has been on a downward trend.
nowadays, state education systems end up teaching their children about how to pass a standardized test imposed by the state, where if a lot of people do well, then the state gets more funding, essentially, instead of being educated these days, in school you are taught how to pass a state test.
you hear about stories in the past about people dropping out more commonly in high school, because they failed, or something along those lines, because it was much easier to hold someone back because it was obvious they weren't educated enough to be in the next grade level.
back then, before this act, teachers were able to teach how they wanted to, that is they could teach what they wanted, leading to some teachers teaching vastly more than the standard curriculum nowadays, creating problem-solvers rather than robots to be put in the workforce
there are kids that want more rigor, and hence, people started going towards ap classes and coursework. now, ap courses have been probably sold to you as "readiness for real college coursework", yet even with me attending a community college for a year, i learnt the vast differences between what i learnt in an ap class versus a one semester class in college, that is, i learnt a lot more in the community college than i would ever learn in an ap course. the reason is simple of course - ap follows the idea similar to what state tests are - they are a set in stone curriculum on what you can be taught, limiting true problem-solving, or true inquiry skills or whatever the course is meant to teach you, and as such ap is a scam, not because of the money, but because of the skills that you lose when you take such a course, i would even argue that ap classes will hinder the potential that future college students have
now of course, i will always encourage everyone to take ap courses or equivalent because yea, american colleges are really really expensive, and not having to take the introductory courses can save a lot of money, but that's an issue in regards to the university system itself we have in america
keep thinking kids, the world relies on you to, (plus dont use ai on your assignments if you are really aiming for "critical thinking" that ap collegeboard sells to you even though it doesn't really teach that, but it's okay, it's better than the horrible slop that is the standardized curriculum of state required testing)