It is officially college application season: one of the most important and stressful components to the high school experience. It is the storm before the calm; students trying to figure out what schools they’re applying to, frantically writing essay after essay, and crunching the numbers to decide if they can even afford the schools that they would like to attend. College application fees are often an overlooked part of the process, but are not as insignificant as one may think. These fees add up, and are in addition to the thousands of dollars it will cost just to attend a college. Is this system fair to students and their families?
A major reason as to why colleges and universities in the United States implement college application fees is to raise revenue. Harvard University makes nearly $3 million dollars annually in gross profits off of college application fees, so it is not untrue that these fees raise a significant amount of money. Harvard, and most other private and prestigious universities receive billions of dollars in endowments each year for the sake of raising revenue, but still deem it necessary to charge hopeful students $75 to apply – on top of the $50,000 in tuition that it takes to attend, of course.
“It [college application fees] definitely limits how many [colleges] I can apply to,” Northwood senior Brynn Dodge said. “I am applying to a lot because I feel like I need the options, but it’s definitely adding up in a way that it shouldn’t. I think between the fees and sending test scores it was almost $900.”
Dodge is not alone with this issue. According to a study conducted by US News, the average fee for college applications is about $44. If you choose to apply to a more prestigious institution, such as an Ivy League school, fee costs will look more like $75-$100. According to College Board, “five to eight applications are usually enough to ensure that a student is accepted into a suitable institution”, which means that students should expect to spend anywhere from $200-$1000 just to apply to college.
There is one way for students to avoid paying college application fees by obtaining a fee waiver. These fee waivers are meant for students who cannot afford the cost of college applications, and are usually based on income eligibility. This opportunity to save money is a great resource to have, but many students who are eligible may not even know they can waive application fees due to lack of resources and guidance at school and at home. According to the American School Counselor Association, the average student-to-school counselor ratio is 464 to 1 across all schools, and nearly 1 in 5 students don’t have access to a school counselor at all.
This past October, the College Foundation of North Carolina held “Free College Application Week”, during which many North Carolina colleges and universities waived their application fees from the 18th to the 22nd. Although a significant portion of North Carolina schools participated, some of the most notable universities such as Duke and many of the UNC system schools (excluding East Carolina University, Elizabeth City State University, Fayetteville State University, NC A&T University, NC Central University, UNC Asheville, UNC Pembroke, Western Carolina University, and Winston Salem State University) did not join the list of institutions that waived fees. These schools also happened to have the most expensive college application fees out of any other college or university in the state, with fees ranging from $75-$85.
According to Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, two-thirds of all jobs in the United States require some sort of post-secondary education. Given this, it seems unfair for there to be financial barriers between students and higher education. It is in the best interest of our society as a whole to live in a more educated world, and it is only ethical to give all students equitable access to educational opportunities.
