College application fees are a scam

CUT THE COSTS

College application fees are ridiculously expensive

CC PALUMBO OPINIONS EDITOR

As college application season takes over, students are forced to juggle supplemental essays, portfolios and, on top of all that, the financial burden that comes with applying. In addition to the costly tuition that ultimately follows, colleges charge a fee just to apply.

The average price to apply to each college is currently $43 but can climb as high as $90 dollars. The amount of money it takes to attend college is so high that this additional cost is unnecessary and needs to either be eradicated or reduced to a more affordable amount.

“People in low-income families don’t have the money to pay $90 to apply to a bunch of schools,” senior Zora Rodgers said. “If they applied to three schools, that’s 270 bucks just in application fees.”

The college application process seems to be built with the intent of weeding out those who aren’t financially stable enough to even start the process, giving an advantage to higher income families by putting up a barrier that holds back students who cannot afford to pay the added fees.

“The vast majority of Ivy League students complain about constant elitism because they’re all rich suburban kids,” Rodgers said. “Those are the only people who have access to quality SAT prep sources and can afford to spend thousands of dollars on the expensive application fees.”

Fee waivers are allocated to students whose families are low income. However, this leaves out the lower middle class who don’t qualify but still can’t afford to cough up $1,000 for applications. Furthermore, waivers are rarely offered by schools, and many students are not made aware of their availability.

THEY SHOULD BE FOCUSING ON MORE COST-EFFECTIVE RESOURCES FOR THEIR APPLICANTS.”

- ZORA RODGERS SENIOR

“Fee waivers not only should be more accessible but should also be more talked about,” Rodgers said. “[Schools and colleges alike] need to do a S SS S S S S S better job of making students’ options more accessible.” Fee waivers are not the solution to the application fee issue. If the cost were reduced, it would be more affordable to the middle class to apply. Regardless, the cost should simply be eliminated due to the copious amounts of money schools make. “[Colleges] are a business, and the amount of money they charge for tuition alone is astronomical,” counselor Greg Olcott said. McLean guidance counselors recommend choosing around seven to nine schools to apply to. If the average is $43, the total cost for a student applying to that many schools is around $301 to $387. The revenue schools get from one student at McLean applying to seven or nine schools is multiplied by millions of kids all across the nation.

“[Colleges] make a ton of money. They don’t need to charge kids 90 bucks to apply to their school, especially when they know they’re about to get $90,000 for this,” Olcott said.

Schools use the money they pull in from students to pay for the resources they use to review applications.

“They have to cover many costs, such as contracts with Common App/Coalition App and paying their admissions staff,” College and Career Specialist Laura Venos said.

Schools rake in billions of dollars to run their institutions and pay their admissions staff even without the revenue produced from application costs. Their foundation is built more on privilege than providing education to those who are deserving of it. Eradicating certain fees is not going to reduce the ample amount of money in their pockets. It will be the first step in making education attainable for everyone.

“They should be focusing on more cost-effective resources for their applicants,” Rodgers said, “because it currently separates the application pool from, not necessarily who’s the best and the brightest, but who’s more financially well off to even apply.”