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MD007
Newcomer I

Your new annual membership Fee is now $125! How do you feel about that?

I think this is disgusting.  I dont feel I got value for money when it was $85 now how do you justify $125?

Its extortionate. 

258 Replies
mencik
Contributor III

As one that holds 3 certs, this new pricing structure saves me $30 per year. As for the increase from $85 to $125 for a single cert being excessive, when was the last time the fee was raised? I've held the CISSP since 1999, and I seem to remember the fee being $85 back then. Would several smaller increases over the years been more acceptable? Or would that just have been like boiling a frog (theory of slowing turning up heat, frog will not jump out)?

On the other hand, if my CISSP and ISSEP were not required for my current job, due to DoD 8570, I probably would have dropped them by now. I certainly will not continue to pay for them once I can retire in about 5 years or so.

mtcook
ISC2 Former Staff

All good points, and true, it has been $85 for a LONG time.  Helps with multiple certs, and there are SO many certs that there is surely one that fits to one's specialty in security, privacy, development, management, architecture, etc.

cheungtsw
Newcomer I

Don't forget CISSP is very expensive compared to other certifications before the price hike.
cybermentor
Newcomer II

I agree 100%. I am CISSP since 2007, and, truly, I NEVER had any benefits not only from "discounts" but from having the certification itself.

 

$85 fee was over the board. To maintain the database of the CISSP members? To maintain the web site? To review the questions for exam? OK, I can understand it. It is still way TOO MUCH to maintain all of it PER PERSON. Let's say, you have 2000 members: $85 x 2000=$170,000! It is a mind-blowing amount of money - quite a serious budget but for WHAT?? 

 

And you still have not enough? It reminds me Uncle Sam.

 

1. I have decided to drop my membership.

2. I am no way willing to pay $125

3. I am curious where the membership fee money goes...

 

I pay enough taxes to feed those who don't work at all. The board of directors MUST be replaced. I am not proud of my membership anymore.

cybermentor
Newcomer II

As I have already mentioned, I am the one who quits after having the cert since 2007.

Early_Adopter
Community Champion

@cheungtsw How did you work that out?

 

I hold three certs with IAPP and they would like 250 USD a year - if I don’t want to be a manner then it’s 125 USD - I go to conferences so it’s 250. Scrum Allince was 100 USD.... so like for like I don’t think 85 USD was that much. If you have more than one it saves you money. 

 

If it wasn’t useful You could always let it lapse, I did, then took the exam again to recertify.

 

I reserve my pity for the SSCPs who did get quite a hike.

 

 

 

 

Illsteward
Newcomer II


@cybermentor wrote:

I agree 100%. I am CISSP since 2007, and, truly, I NEVER had any benefits not only from "discounts" but from having the certification itself.

 

$85 fee was over the board. To maintain the database of the CISSP members? To maintain the web site? To review the questions for exam? OK, I can understand it. It is still way TOO MUCH to maintain all of it PER PERSON. Let's say, you have 2000 members: $85 x 2000=$170,000! It is a mind-blowing amount of money - quite a serious budget but for WHAT?? 

 

And you still have not enough? It reminds me Uncle Sam.

 

1. I have decided to drop my membership.

2. I am no way willing to pay $125

3. I am curious where the membership fee money goes...

 

I pay enough taxes to feed those who don't work at all. The board of directors MUST be replaced. I am not proud of my membership anymore.


Actually, there's way more ISC does, like the vulnerability central, the summits, e-learning (web seminars), publishing of the InfoSec magazine and many more activities.

Sure, parts of it are questionable (how many members are gonna profit from the cyber security scholarships?), but it's definitely not as easy as what you stated. Plus while I don't want to advocate the fee increase, I really see no correlation between AMFs and organisation credibility. Is Vassar College in NY more reputable than Boston College, MA or Yale in Connecticuit, simply because they charge more? Or how about Harvard College in Boston, MA? It has lower AMF (tuition) so it has to have higher reputation, no?
Still, I agree that the raise should be justified better and delivered in debate, rather than directively given as a raise. Less angry members for ISC and (hopefuly) less quitters.

Early_Adopter
Community Champion

Hate to be the bearer of bad news but, 170K USD, while fairly transformative for an individually family outside of th places the hot money flows is not going to go very far in running mid size - I think isc2 has about 130k members - so they have more, and other cash flows - but the reports are there for all to see:

 

https://www.isc2.org/-/media/ISC2/About/Leadership/Annual-Reports/isc2-annual-report-2016.ashx?la=en...

Early_Adopter
Community Champion

I remember a guy I used to work with - Long time ago and we smoked at the time he always said “quitters never win”. Turned out the defocus provided by the cigarette break helped with ideation on coding problems, so actually unless we had a futsal it just quitting would have been detrimental...

cybermentor
Newcomer II

Samantha, 

 

You have made a serious mistake. Having 121,523 certified members and, correspondingly, $10,329,455 budget, you have decided that $10 mil is not enough and want to increase the budget by 47% taking money out of the members' pockets. 

As you may find from the reaction of the CISSP members, your sudden "modest" membership fee increase was met with quite a negative reaction.

You may bring all kind of arguments but the facts are:

1. We don't need your webinars to earn the CEU and pay for them. 

2. We don't need your "perks" that are useless. People have no time to browse hundreds of pages to locate where they can save a few bucks.

3. We don't need the magazine that is also used for adding the opportunities to earn more CEU and pay from our pocket. There is a large number of useful IT Security publications we can use.

4. We feel that you push the members to the wall and force them to pay higher fee (like alliance with DoD that forces experienced IT professional to get the certification as a requirement).

5. It used to be a respectable certification. NOT ANYMORE. 

6. We feel the ISC2 is a money-making machine for the CEO and those who surround him. You don't really need $10.3 millions (or $15.1 millions after the fee change) to maintain "long-term credibility, impact and relevancy of your certification". People are not stupid, especially those who have passed CISSP exam, and can see through where money goes.

 

I can guarantee that you will lose substantial chunk of members. Count on me: I am the first one.