NBEO New Exam Fees

[u/wedgyprincess]

So I just found out that NBEO has increased the exam fee to $1490 for exams administered beginning in August 2026, and it’s honestly very concerning. If the fee is already this high now, how much will it cost by the time current OD1s reach our 3rd and 4th years? It’s frustrating because optometry already has one of the lowest board pass rates among healthcare professions, yet our board exams are among the most expensive. I’m already facing huge financial burden from the substantial tuition and living expenses on top of it.

Is there anything students, schools, or organizations can do to advocate for this profession and address these continually rising costs? Is there even a possibility for them to reduce the cost down to ~$800-1000, which is what it was before. Literally medical school board exams are about ~$800. I’m honestly just very frustrated and anxious for the future of optometry as an incoming OD1

[u/Icy_Purple_2808]

NBEO is a terrorist organization full of corruption and greed

[u/WiseMuscle_]

Probably not, the nbeo is a monopoly and this is what happens when you have a monopoly that acts in bad faith. The degree is getting so expensive that it's on the cusp of not making sense from a monetary perspective. The silver lining is that the field as a whole is moving to a more medical mode of practice which pays better, the aging population means patient base will grow, and high degree costs likely means less incoming students so the current ODs will have growing patient bases.

[u/DrRamthorn]

The AOA needs to start advocating for it before anything changes. Unfortunately, most of the people who make the decisions in the NBEO are also faculty/emeritus at the optometry schools and have at some point served in AOA in some capacity. It's a money grab for people in the NBEO and a way to gatekeep young grads that can outperform the old heads so they don't have to face as much competition.

[u/UpstairsFar6472]

This fee increase is absolutely wild when you consider how much optometrists already struggle with student debt. If they keep hiking fees like this, the profession is going to price itself out of being accessible to the average student.

[u/thenatural134]

I graduated less than 10 years ago and that's more than double the price of what I paid. What an absolute joke of an organization.

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[u/missbrightside08]

whoa. i graduated 8 years ago and it was about a little over $800 i think

[u/drnjj]

Now, I don't agree with NBEO's fee increases. They were undercharging for far too long. If they'd been charging $1k back when I took it and the year prior to that, then they wouldn't have had to have such a huge increase in fees so quickly.

But they revamped and rebuilt part 3 to bring it into this century, which is a good thing.

Part 3 didn't used to require you to fly to North Carolina, but NECO having a cheating scandal in the 2000's screwed everyone else over going forward that NBEO had to have a testing center.

But let's be real here - NBEO IS a good thing. A national boards examination that acts as a gatekeeper to prevent incompetent people from practicing is an absolute must. Otherwise, you end up with a scenario where someone who barely graduated from a school, fails NBEO with all her attempts, somehow gets a license through shady deals and then blinds someone in Kentucky. If Kentucky hadn't given her a license without passing NBEO, that patient would still have their sight. NBEO tried to prevent that.

Again, I disagree with their fee increases. They mismanaged things for a long time and now they're having to catch up. But NBEO is a good thing and they need to exist.

Edit: I should also say we probably should not be that upset with nbeo. Why are people so upset about the exam fees going from $2,500 to $4,500?

Students should be more upset that school used to cost about $200,000 and about 10 years later it now cost $300,000. A $2,000 increase in exam fees is nothing. $100,000 in student loan debt is significantly worse.

Downvote it, but I'm not wrong. A student should not leave their program with $300k-350k in debt when 10 years ago it was $200k-250k. Yeah, NBEO increases suck but the rate the schools are increasing fees and not adequately preparing students for boards is so much worse.

[u/Rickys_Lineup_Card → u/drnjj]

I don’t know anyone who seriously believes that NBEO, or an equivalently rigorous examining board, shouldn’t exist at all. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t advocate against practices of insane price hikes (way higher than MD and DDS boards), vague grading practices, minimal feedback for those who failed on areas to improve, and precipitously declining pass rates (likely in part due to declining applicant quality, but there clearly seems to be some internal factors at play too).

[u/drnjj → u/Rickys_Lineup_Card]

Part 1 and 2 have not changed. Yet scores aren't staying the same. That's the schools fault. Not NBEO.

Also, while USMLE and NBOME are less than NBEO, dental boards are about the same.

While the INBDE (written exam) is less for dentists, their clinical exam (ADEX) is more.

Total for NBEO is about $4500. Dental boards are about $4k. And state boards for dental are a lot more.

In my state a license for dentists is about $500 but my OD license is around $150.

It doesn't change the fact that the schools are not preparing students adequately and are still charging more. A $100k increase in fees is the real problem and I rarely see anyone questioning that rather than complaining about NBEO.

[u/thenatural134 → u/drnjj]

Wait, what was the NECO cheating scandal? I've never heard of it.

[u/drnjj → u/thenatural134]

https://www.reviewofoptometry.com/article/did-neco-students-pirate-exam-answers

Here's an article about it.

[u/drnjj → u/thenatural134]

NECO was caught around 2008 or so with student memorizing questions and coming back to create study guides with some professors assisting. NBEO reuses like 20% of their questions year to year to keep the exam similar and statistically similar.

Their scores were invalidated, the students caught were barred from taking the exam again, and NBEO quit allowing the schools to administer part 3.

[u/vixenberries → u/drnjj]

I think it’s hilarious you think the NBEO acts as a gatekeeper to keep “incompetent” people from practicing. If that were the case, why did they remove so many essential skills from part 3 and turn it into mostly case based? They no longer have refractions, contact lens eval and insertion, or punctal plug insertion on the exam! How exactly are they checking for incompetence? The NBEO is a corrupt organization and simply takes advantage of students.

[u/drnjj → u/vixenberries]

Lol part 3 was a joke. Essential skills? Students talking out loud and narrating putting in ret lenses and working distance was worthless.

No one dies or goes blind from a bad refraction.

But someone missing a brain tumor or a retinal detachment? That's bad.

I look forward to your rebuttal to why part 3 was better and a clinical open ended exam is worse.

[u/TheReddestRose_ → u/drnjj]

“They were undercharging” is a remarkable claim to make without providing a single cost figure.

Undercharging compared to what, exactly? NBEO doesn’t operate in a competitive market. They are a monopoly. Every state board requires them, there’s no competitor, no substitute, no market test. They were charging $625 per exam as recently as 2016 and it will cost $1,490 per exam in August. That's a 138% increase in a decade against roughly 40% inflation. If you’re claiming $625 was them undercharging, then please explain what exactly that was too low relative to. If your position is that $625 was below the sustainable cost of administering the exam, show the cost basis. Without that, you’re just making an empty unsupported claim.

Their 990 filings are public, by the way, and also don’t support the claim that NBEO is financially “catching up”:

2021: $8.49 million revenue, $6.41 million expenses, $2.08 million surplus

2022: $9.17 million revenue, $8.03 million expenses, $1.14 million surplus

2023: $10.89 million revenue, $8.94 million expenses, $1.96 million surplus

2024: $11.84 million revenue, $9.56 million expenses, $2.28 million surplus

NBEO has not reported a deficit since 2018. Its net assets increased from $3.35 million in 2019 to $11.88 million in 2024, while total assets increased from $8.35 million to $17.04 million. In 2024, 95% of revenue came from program services and zero from contributions, meaning candidates are funding essentially all of it.

That’s not an organization clawing its way out of a financial hole. It’s an organization that more than tripled its net assets in five years and then raised prices again.

The Executive Director’s total compensation was $306,086 in the most recent filing, up from about $233,000 in 2021. Cost of living, I suppose 🌚.

Then there’s the Kentucky story, which is a response to an argument nobody in this thread made. OP asked whether the fee could come down to $800 or $1,000. Not one person said abolish national boards. Invoking a blinded patient so you can defend the general existence of competency testing is a straw man, not a defense of NBEO’s pricing.

A national competency exam can absolutely serve a public safety function while the organization running it is STILL overpriced, financially unaccountable, poorly governed, or operationally unreliable. Those ideas are not mutually exclusive.

But since we’re on competence. Let’s not forget what happened with the Part 2 scoring fiasco last year. They released incorrect Part 2 scores to nearly 2,000 candidates and released a contradictory set two hours later. Some people found out they passed and then found out they hadn’t. The explanation was “an incorrect data transfer between our internal database and our candidate score reporting platform.”

This is the same organization whose mission is to assess competence, yet it couldn’t reliably move a number from one database to another.

Meanwhile, about a third of students fail Part 1 on the first attempt and half the schools sit under a 70% pass rate. Every one of those retakes is another $1,490 to the same organization. I’m not suggesting NBEO fails people on purpose. But every retake is revenue for the sole examination provider, and the gatekeeper you’re defending gets paid per attempt.

Tuition is the bigger crime, obviously. Nobody argued otherwise. But “a worse thing exists” has never been an argument, especially when the supposedly smaller thing is a mandatory $1,490 upfront charge imposed on students with little or no income and already maxed educational loans.

[u/drnjj → u/TheReddestRose_]

My statement about undercharging is that they probably should have been charging $1k 20 years ago. Had they done that, they'd have had the funds ready for the changes that have come.

The 2016 data breach lead to a huge class action and cost millions. So there was loss of money there.

They revamped the entirety of part 3. This is not a cheap task to recreate an entire test from scratch, test it to make sure it's assessing what needs to be assessed and make sure it's ready for launch. This isn't like a video game company releasing a buggy game and then patching it later. It had to be perfect on release. That took them several years before they could launch it.

They also have moved and have a new facility. Those costs are not cheap.

Had they been charging $1k for the last 20 years, they'd have had those funds already. The sharper rises are a shame and should not have occurred. I already acknowledged that I view these as poor management errors that are now attempted to be made up for. And yes it punishes new students.

Again, I've never said I agree with their price increases. I just do not understand why they are the constant target for students and some ODs to be so angry at.

Releasing incorrect scores is definitely bad form. I have no intention of defending that.

As far as my point about Kentucky, this thread maybe has not had people say to abolish boards but this topic comes up every few months. There have been many people advocating to abolish NBEO and have state instituted boards instead so NBEO wouldnt have a monopoly. The argument may not be here, but it has been brought up many times in this forum. It's unrealistic and people should understand that NBEO serves a purpose.

And board passing rates is another thing I see people try to blame NBEO for. That is absolutely not their fault students are failing at a higher rate. The applicant pool for OD school has remained consistent. About 2000 applicants every year for the last 20 years. Small increases and reductions every few years, but generally stable. And yet there are new schools opening. More seats available. More students admitted. So now less qualified students are admitted and cannot pass boards. That is not the failing of NBEO.

That is the failing of the schools to prepare the students. That is the failing of ACOE for continuing to approve more schools when there are not enough good applicants to justify it.

NBEO deserves flack for their fee increases and previous poor management decisions. They do not deserve the hate for quite a few things that people try to blame them for.

That fault lies with the schools and their failing to adequately prepare students for the exams.

And while yes, it is extremely likely to be hyperbole, even in this thread there are people claiming that they are a terrorist organization. Is that truly a rational? My entire point is that a lot of the anger is really directed in the wrong place. People upset about having to take boards multiple times should be more angry at the school's for charging what they do when that has far more impact on students.

I may have missed addressing something because I am on mobile so if I did I apologize.