Even before the first tuition bill arrives, the cost of college can add up for students when applying to a few schools — especially selective ones.
“The colleges that have an acceptance rate that is much more selective have a much higher application fee,” says Mark Kantrowitz, publisher and vice president of strategy for Cappex.com, a college application and scholarship search site.
According to data submitted to U.S. News by 960 ranked colleges and universities in an annual survey, the typical application fee in the fall 2016 admissions cycle was $50. More than half of schools that charged $70 or more in 2016-2017 accepted less than 40 percent of applicants, U.S. News data show.
“If a college accepts less than 40 percent of its applicants, there definitely seems to be a pricing power,” says Kantrowitz on selective schools charging more for applications. “Once they hit 40 percent or above there isn’t a strong impact.”
It’s not unheard of for prospective students to apply to more than 10 schools, says Nancy Griesemer, founder of College Explorations and independent education consultant, of Oakton, Virginia.
[See which schools topped the 2018 U.S. News Best Colleges rankings.]
Griesemer says families usually spend between $500 and $1,000 in total on college applications. “Some of the more selective schools line up with the most expensive application fees.”
But some families are willing to fork out hundreds in applications to competitive schools in hopes of being offered a generous financial aid package.
“The cost of applications was high, but we were thinking about the long-term cost benefit analysis,” Nathaniel Turner says. Turner’s son, Naeem Turner-Bandele, applied to 31 schools. Many of the schools where the engineering major applied charged more than the typical application fee.
“We budgeted $500, but we spent a lot more,” the Indiana father says. “One of the reasons why we applied to so many schools is when you apply to competitive schools, the likelihood that you’re going to get accepted is so slim.”
College admissions experts say many families apply to selective schools because many of these institutions offer better aid packages compared with less selective schools or most public institutions. While Brown University in Rhode Island and Rice University in Texas, for example, charge $75 to apply, these colleges have “no-loans policies” to assist needy students.
By expanding the pool to a large number of competitive schools, Turner says his son was able to secure a generous financial aid award from Santa Clara University in California.
[Find out how many colleges students should apply to.]
Turner-Bandele, who is now a rising senior, also applied to the University of California–Davis and University of California–Berkeley. But based on the financial aid packages from those schools, his father says: “In retrospect, we wouldn’t have considered them.”
In fact, University of California schools are so popular among in-state and out-of-state applicants that the system received nearly 600,000 freshman applications in fall 2016 for all of its campuses. The volume of applicants to UC schools is so high that it represents nearly 7 percent of all college applications for the fall 2016 admissions cycle, according to data submitted by 960 ranked schools to U.S. News in annual survey.
Across all of the University of California’s nine campuses for undergraduates, the system generated an estimated $42 million in revenue from fall 2016 applicants. That’s based on freshman applicant counts and application waiver data from the University of California’s Office of the President.
To apply to a UC school, the fee is $70 for U.S. applicants and $80 for prospective international students. For students from low-income households, the University of California system waives the fee. In fall 2016, the UC system waived fees for 44,435 candidates, according to a UCOP spokesperson.
Ricardo Vazquez from UCOP says application fees are allocated to campuses based upon the number of applications they received. “The fee is used to cover the costs of reviewing the applications for admission.”
Griesemer from College Explorations says most families — unless they’re low income — don’t think twice about paying high application fees. Nor, she says, do they stop and think whether these fees are “actual fundraising” for these schools.
[Check out the 10 most and least expensive private colleges.]
“The colleges would say it doesn’t cover their cost, but a lot of less selective schools have no fees at all,” the independent education consultant says.
But there are a handful of selective schools — such as the United States Naval Academy in Maryland and Carleton College in Minnesota — with no application fees.
College advising experts also say prospective students can find more than 100 schools on several online college application platforms, such as the Cappex Application and Greenlight Scholars Application, which do not charge a fee. Several schools on the Common Application also have no charge.
While application waivers are usually available to applicants from low-income backgrounds, college experts say these students tend to be discouraged by costs.
But more than 90 institutions, many of which are private, are members of the Coalition Application, an online platform designed to help increase college access for low-income students.
“The challenge is that with low-income students, first-generation students and underrepresented students, application fees can represent a significant barrier. There are many at-risk populations that don’t apply to college because of the application fee,” says Kantrowitz from Cappex.com.
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College Applications Can Cost Hundreds originally appeared on usnews.com
