Are AP Exams Worth The Price?

Is the District protecting our students when it comes to the high cost of AP Exams and truly educating them on the benefits of AP classes. Many students their Sophomore and Junior year stress about the need to take AP Classes, but are counselors and teachers working with students to determine if the class will truly provide a long term benefit to the student or will it just create harm.
The average cost of an AP Test according to College Board for 2017-2018 school year will be $93. In 2016-2017 SDUHSD charged $111 for each AP Exam.
We recently asked a parent of a Student that graduated and received a full athletic scholarship to ASU, if there was anything you could do over again, what would it be. His response - "We would not allow are Student to take any AP Classes. They stressed him out and they provide not benefit to him at ASU".
According to the District Local Control Accountability Plan ("LCAP") 80% of the Students that take an AP Exam in the District passes with a 3 or higher. What can we do in the District to increase that success rate by 5%?
If your student or you are the student that was in the 20% that did not achieve a 3 or higher -- what ideas do you have to increase the success rate.
What courses did the students struggle in to reach the 3 or higher score?
How can we better get the facts and prepare our Students without all the meaningless chatter.