It’s no lie that applying to college is mentally and physically draining. The average senior applies to about eight to ten colleges: three safeties, four targets and two reaches. Along with the endless cycle of essays and personal statements they have to write, students have to deal with application fees. Application fees are the fees that colleges charge for simply applying to their institution. These fees can range anywhere from $75-90 dollars, meaning that seniors pay an average of $600-900 dollars on college applications (sometimes even more). Although students from low-income earning families get automatic fee waivers, students shouldn’t have to pay fees to apply to college.

First of all, college applications are simply too expensive. While low-income students get an application fee waiver, the average American does not. Yes, application fees are supposed to be in one’s college savings. However, only 33% of Americans have college savings, and 66% of that 33% is $1,001 to $5,000-which will barely cover room and board costs, less than even talk of the actual tuition costs. Also, because most students pay for their application fees with their own money, it would be in the best interests of higher education institutions to eliminate application fees.

The number of students that apply to these institutions compared to the number of students they accept, or even the amount of students that end up enrolling in the school. Looking at these numbers, it is obvious that there is a huge disparity. In the 2022-2023 school year, Yale made $3.34 million from 52,510 applicants; however, they only admitted 2,272 students. The revenue is increasing every year as colleges become increasingly selective and decrease their acceptance rates, yet the same number of ambitious students are applying. Colleges are making money off rejected applicants: which is frankly unfair because ambitious applicants shouldn’t become money-making strategies for colleges that already have enough funding. Especially since students who choose to enroll on the institution pay an acceptance fee of about $500. So, that money is set to be made anyway.

Lastly, application fees decrease matriculation. This means that college application fees dissuade people from not only diverse backgrounds from applying for college, but people in general. This means that fewer people will be applying for college, this can be interpreted as a positive, as more students are finding that traditional postsecondary education is not the path for them, and are looking at community colleges, trade schools, or simply going into the workforce. Still, for many, application fees act as a barrier for many applicants and contrary to the perspective of colleges, they’re not just not a file of test scores and essays, but an actual person.