Application Fees

Ever since my first day in admissions, I've had a big problem with the concept of college application fees. They just seem odd to me: You pay some amount of money for the privilege of being considered for admission, often not certain you'll attend if you are. And if you're not admitted, you're out of luck.

I understand those who support the concept, in concept: Students shouldn't apply to a lot of colleges, and they should be somewhat serious about the colleges they apply to. Except we know that doesn't happen. The counselor at my kids' school said a few years ago one student applied to 46, and the Fast Apps, Snap Apps, and VIP apps all encourage students to apply to places just because they can.

I also realize that there are costs associated with processing applications, although those costs have dropped pretty dramatically in the past several years, especially when all the documents come in electronically. But all the costs of doing business are paid for by the students who pay tuition, and, presumably, more applications is good for the college they attend.

There may be other models where this system is used, but I'm not able to come up with any. All I can think about is having to pay $50 just to walk onto the Toyota lot and shop for cars (which is hardly a perfect analogy, either.)

Too often in the discussion about things like "admit to deny," people will point out that app fees from students who have little chance of being admitted are a revenue source for colleges. Technically yes, but actually no. At most institutions, it's about 1/10th of 1% of total revenue.

So, take a look at what colleges charge to apply. This visualization starts with just under 2,000 four-year colleges and universities, each represented by a dot. IPEDS apparently list the highest fee a college charges when there are multiple levels.

Hover over the dot for details. The bar chart at the bottom shows the breakouts as a percent of total. Use the filters on the right to show a smaller set of colleges.

What do you notice?

Comments

Changes in AP Scores, 2022 to 2024

Used to be, with a little work, you could download very detailed data on AP results from the College Board website: For every state, and for every course, you could see performance by ethnicity. And, if you wanted to dig really deep, you could break out details by private and public schools, and by grade level. I used to publish the data every couple of years. Those days are gone. The transparency The College Board touts as a value seems to have its limits, and I understand this to some extent: Racists loved to twist the data using single-factor analysis, and that's not good for a company who is trying to make business inroads with under-represented communities as they cloak their pursuit of revenue as an altruistic push toward access. They still publish data, but as I wrote about in my last post , it's far less detailed; what's more, what is easily accessible is fairly sterile, and what's more detailed seems to be structured in a way that suggests the company doesn...

Educational Attainment and the Presidential Elections

I've been fascinated for a while by the connection between political leanings and education: The correlation is so strong that I once suggested that perhaps Republicans were so anti-education because, in general, places with a higher percentage of bachelor's degree recipients were more likely to vote for Democrats. The 2024 presidential election puzzled a lot of us in higher education, and perhaps these charts will show you why: We work and probably hang around mostly people with college degrees (or higher). Our perception is limited. With the 2024 election data just out , I thought I'd take a look at the last three elections and see if the pattern I noticed in 2016 and 2020 held. Spoiler: It did, mostly. Before you dive into this, a couple of tips: Alaska's data is always reported in a funky way, so just ignore it here. It's a small state (in population, that is) and it's very red. It doesn't change the overall trends even if I could figure out how to c...

Changes in SAT Scores after Test-optional

One of the intended consequences of test-optional admission policies at some institutions prior to the COVID-19 pandemic was to raise test scores reported to US News and World Report. It's rare that you would see a proponent of test-optional admission like me admit that, but to deny it would be foolish. Because I worked at DePaul, which was an early adopter of the approach (at least among large universities), I fielded a lot of calls from colleagues who were considering it, some of whom were explicit in their reasons for doing so. One person I spoke to came right out at the start of the call: She was only calling, she said, because her provost wanted to know how much they could raise scores if they went test-optional. If I sensed or heard that motivation, I advised people against it. In those days, the vast majority of students took standardized admission tests like the SAT or ACT, but the percentage of students applying without tests was still relatively small; the ne...

Higher Ed Data Stories

Search This Blog