The Educational Testing Service (ETS) has announced a strategic partnership with the AI-powered student recruitment platform Passage. This collaboration merges ETS’s established assessments, including the TOEFL and GRE, with Passage’s technology to connect students and universities more efficiently. The alliance aims to provide institutions with better tools to identify students who are a good fit, while offering learners a clearer path from discovering an educational opportunity to actually enrolling.
Integrating Testing Data into Recruitment Workflows
Under the agreement, ETS selected Passage as its exclusive strategic partner for extending the reach of its testing programs. The technology will integrate TOEFL and GRE assessment data into AI-enabled workflows used by institutions. ETS will maintain full ownership and operational control of its assessments, covering everything from test development and scoring to security and validity standards.
ETS president Janet Garcia noted that the move supports the organization’s goal of expanding access to global education. She stated that the partnership reflects ETS’s commitment to helping institutions adapt to a changing global enrolment environment. Together, ETS and Passage aim to support institutions in unlocking stronger global recruitment pathways while also expanding access to educational opportunities for students around the world.
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Passage CEO Martin Basiri highlighted the scale of the potential impact. Basiri noted that for decades, TOEFL and GRE have given students a way to signal their academic readiness to institutions around the world. Passage is building the AI infrastructure that turns that into opportunity at a scale neither of them could have imagined, so millions of students can find the institutions already looking for them.
Expanding Access Through Technology
While the immediate focus is on recruitment efficiency, ETS frames the broader context as a mission to use technology for global opportunity. The organization has set a target to prepare more than 100 million people for the next generation of jobs by 2035. This partnership serves as a specific mechanism to move toward that larger goal.
Initial capabilities for both institutions and students are scheduled to launch this autumn.
