College application fees average $42 and have even hit $80 to $90 at some schools, but students don’t have to break the bank to apply for higher education.
More than 250 of the 750-plus colleges and universities that accept the Common Application (which is overseen by a nonprofit of the same name) don’t charge students an application fee. Individual schools decide whether or not to charge a fee for the application and how much. A growing number of schools are also offering fee waivers. According to the Common App, more than 225,000 applicants received a waiver for its 2016-17 application, nearly a 17 percent rise from the prior year.
Any students using the Cappex Application may apply for free to the 125 member colleges accepting this new application from Cappex, a college search and scholarship website. Member colleges have agreed to waive the fee for these applicants. Cappex, which piloted its application last year, is continuing to add schools, says Mark Kantrowitz, its publisher and vice president of strategy.
“We had more student accounts created in the first week than in the first month last year,” he says. “Students seem to really like the new, easy-to-use design.” The application prefills information from students’ Cappex user profiles and uses skip logic to reduce the number of questions asked.
“Half of college-bound high school seniors use Cappex each year to find the right colleges,” he says, “so it is natural for them to continue the college admissions process with the Cappex Application.” Cappex also offers a Greenlight Scholars application, built on top of the same platform, that’s designed to highlight the strengths of low-income, first-generation and underrepresented students, he says.
Cappex, which provides a management tool that includes links to all application platforms used by each college, doesn’t view the other platforms as competition, says Kantrowitz. “We all have a goal of improving college access,” he says.
At the Common App, “We welcome competition from all online application organizations who are working to make college possible for students,” says Jenny Rickard, the president and CEO of the 42-year-old nonprofit. The Common App doesn’t limit the number of types of application paths that colleges can offer, she says, and it encourages member schools to do whatever best serves the individual institution and its applicant pool.
The Common App is continuing to improve its own platform, which now connects millions of students to financial aid and scholarship opportunities, free virtual mentoring services, and resources for the college exploration and search process. “To expand access, we realize we need to be more than an application,” she says.
Carleton College, one of the nation’s top liberal arts colleges, encourages students to use the application they feel works best for them, says Adam Webster, senior associate dean of admissions at the Minnesota-based school. The four options if offers, all for free, are the Common App, the Coalition Application, Cappex’s Greenlight application and QuestBridge, which also targets low-income students. [The Universal College Application is another platform offered by some colleges.]
Carleton, which offers strong financial aid resources, has no intention of reinstating application fees, says Webster. “We believe they make it more difficult for students of limited means but exceptional talents to consider applying to colleges in general,” he says.