Continue to Site

Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

  • Congratulations Danlap on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

How is NCEES allowed to have a monopoly?

OGCashMonet

Structural
Feb 21, 2025
3
Just for context, I'm a multi-state PE who passed FE/PE/CA Seismic/CA Surveying all on first try. I'm not coming from a place of complaining about NCEES. In fact, I think they've done a relatively good job and have had no issues. I am genuinely just curious how this organization is allowed to have a monopoly on engineering testing.

Is there literally no other organization that wants to compete with them?

Is the NCEES to State Board lobby that strong that states would not accept any other organizations testing?

For nuance, I understand the need to uphold standards and a singular organization is the most efficient way to keep the assessment of engineering ability standardized. However, it does seem like the lack of competition means that the overall product is suffering. Why is there no option for me to take a paper SE exam? How does a pass rate of 55% drop to 14% simply by change of testing apparatus? Why change from (2) tests you have to pay for to (4) tests you have to pay for? How are the prices for these tests set? At the very best, they have a monopoly and can set prices for these tests to whatever they would like. I'm not on the attack of NCEES, but I am curious why there is no other competing product from any other organization like ASCE or SEAOC.
 
Replies continue below

Recommended for you

The business term is "barriers to entry", primarily due to inertia of state boards and their regulations.

I imagine a company could effectively compete with a better testing product and experience.

I can't imagine the effort it would take to have that accepted by a state board as an alternate qualification to an NCEES exam result.
 
I do not remember SE pass rates (overall) being 55%. It seems like it has generally been in the 30's or 40's depending on the year and the test portion. That being said, I agree that there was a huge drop with CBT and that 14% is abysmal.

I have commented previously on this topic, but If the change over the CBT was purely a business decision to match PEARSON standards and make logistics of testing and grading easier, I think it was a poor one. I have droned on in the past on why I dislike CBT both in school and for the licensure exams specifically, so I will spare you on that one. I think the industry as a whole has started to take notice, and hopefully NCEES will listen.
 
I do not remember SE pass rates (overall) being 55%. It seems like it has generally been in the 30's or 40's depending on the year and the test portion. That being said, I agree that there was a huge drop with CBT and that 14% is abysmal.

When I took the SE exam (one of the last years it was California specific), the pass rate was something like 16%. I remember hearing about one year where it was only 7%!! Thankfully, that was years before I was thinking about taking it.

I tend to think it bounces around a little. Like they use problems that are easier.... or similar enough to previous years that the pass rate goes up. They react to that by re-configuring the exam problems and the pass rates go down again.
 
When I took the SE exam (one of the last years it was California specific), the pass rate was something like 16%. I remember hearing about one year where it was only 7%!! Thankfully,
17% for me. That's back when structural engineers were REAL engineers!
LOL
 
The business term is "barriers to entry", primarily due to inertia of state boards and their regulations.

I imagine a company could effectively compete with a better testing product and experience.

I can't imagine the effort it would take to have that accepted by a state board as an alternate qualification to an NCEES exam result.
Yeah, that's my main question. It seems like the main barrier to entry would be the credibility as an organization. I just feel like organizations like ASCE and SEAOC could probably provide an exam product that is just as credible and would give some level of competition on price as well as ability to assess via paper and not only CBT.
 
I do not remember SE pass rates (overall) being 55%. It seems like it has generally been in the 30's or 40's depending on the year and the test portion. That being said, I agree that there was a huge drop with CBT and that 14% is abysmal.

I have commented previously on this topic, but If the change over the CBT was purely a business decision to match PEARSON standards and make logistics of testing and grading easier, I think it was a poor one. I have droned on in the past on why I dislike CBT both in school and for the licensure exams specifically, so I will spare you on that one. I think the industry as a whole has started to take notice, and hopefully NCEES will listen.
Sorry, the 55->14 drop is the most extreme example with regard to the lateral depth portion of the test. I didn't mean for that to characterize where I'm coming from. It's just unfortunate that we have to rely on one company and their ability to adapt with no other options.
 

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor