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Last spring, Mr. Thacker announced that he and the organization he founded to promote his ideals, the Education Conservancy, were going into partnership with the College Board. Their joint venture: a Web site, free to users, that would provide all manner of advice and perspective on the admissions process.
While specifics are, as yet, scarce, the project is intended to enhance two existing strands on the board's sprawling site, collegeboard.com. One, under the heading "Plan," helps high school students build to-do lists. study usThe other, "Search," assists them in evaluating particular colleges.
The new site is expected to make its debut next fall. Its particular mission is to level the playing field for students in low-income communities who might not have access to the sophisticated information about higher education that flows as freely as a water bubbler in private academies and suburban public high schools.
In that respect, the stated purpose of this endeavor bears little resemblance to the board's for-profit foray for which it raised $30 million from investors to build an education site that would also help students open bank accounts and buy dorm furniture. The board bought out those investors in 2003, and that subsidiary reverted to a nonprofit.
Mr. Thacker acknowledges that deciding to work for the College Board caused him sleepless nights, and prompted some head-shaking among close supporters.study us The College Board, he says, is paying him a consulting fee over several years he will not say how much and has also licensed intellectual property from the conservancy (which has only one employee other than Mr. Thacker).
"Some people yelled at me for doing this," he says, adding that their main concern could be distilled as follows: "Thacker's been bought off."
His response?
"Maybe that's how you see it," he says he tells people, "But I'm trying to do my best to do good by the values of our organization, and to deliver the most good possible."
To those who have seen him in action standing up at a conference to rail against the outsize influence of the U.S. News & World Report college rankings Mr. Thacker can come off as a brushy-haired holdover from the heyday of the counterculture. As it turns out, he is happiest with an acoustic guitar strapped over his shoulder and a harmonica between his lips, playing in a coffee house or nightclub. "I'm more of an artist than a businessman," Mr. Thacker says.
Still, his deal with the College Board and a separate project, not yet as far long, with Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports underscores that he is an accomplished practitioner of realpolitikstudy us.
In conceiving a Web site that would seek to "democratize access to good guidance," Mr. Thacker says he knew he had a very expensive idea one that, if done right, would cost millions to execute. (Both he and the board decline to say how much.) The conservancy, which exists off the proceeds of foundation grants, speakers' fees and the "small pennies" in royalties from book sales, couldn't possibly afford to underwrite such an ambitious effort.
