Would you pay $90 to apply to Stanford, even if the chance of getting accepted is roughly 5 percent?

Each year, dozens of Saratoga High school seniors pay such exorbitant application fees to many colleges, but less privileged students may not have that option.

Students are now paying more than ever to apply to institutions like Stanford, Columbia University and Duke University. The trend closes college doors to low-income families and places an unnecessary burden on upper-middle class ones, who are already expected to pay astronomical college tuitions with limited to nonexistent financial assistance.

A quick Google search yields disquieting results. In 2014, US News ranked schools based on their application fee cost.  Seven schools out of  1,073  were found to charge more than $80 for applying.

Stanford University topped the list with its $90 fee. According to Naviance, 84 students in the Class of 2015 applied to Stanford. This means that Saratoga students alone paid Stanford almost $8,000 in application fees. Less than a handful of these applicants will be admitted and pay the $60,000 annual tuition; the others will see their $90 fed into Stanford’s vast budget.

Equally popular and prestigious is Yale University, which charges $80, an eightfold increase from its 1960s standard.

Elite schools accept the richest students, receive the most grant money and have the most resources. And yet, they charge the highest application fees in order to reap the financial benefits of attracting enormous numbers of applicants.

The prices to apply to lower-tier colleges are on the rise as well. The average cost of a US college application fee in 2014 was $41, the highest it has ever been. In 2011, the average was $37.45.

This isn’t fair to the applicant, who must fork over inordinate amounts of money to both College Board and colleges.

Consider the costs of crafting an application to top colleges. The SAT costs around $50 and a Subject Test roughly $25; both cost about $11 to send to a college. The PSAT comes with a $25 registration fee. One AP exam is $91 this year and sending the score to one college costs $15. The average Saratoga student takes 4.4 AP exams while he or she is in high school. Assuming a student takes the minimum of one SAT, two Subject Tests and PSAT, total testing registration costs $525.
Multiply the number of scores sent per college by 12, about the average number of schools that a Saratoga senior applies to, and add the average $75 application fee for each, and the total becomes $1,557.

While College Board and some colleges offer fee waivers to the lowest income students, the cost of applying is still a significant dent in the wallets of even the well-off.

Students around the country do not have the option of loading up on test retakes. Wealthy students have no problems with taking the SAT multiple times in order to get their desired score, but for others nationwide the costs are prohibitive.
The high costs of meeting the requirements to complete an education, and then submitting the application to colleges, create an unequal playing field between students of different income levels. The high cost of application fees further deters low-income students of equal merit from applying to their dream schools.

This means that when you walk onto to the campus of any given Ivy League, you might find a diversity of races, but not a diversity of socio-economic backgrounds. This hampers the quality of a college education, which should expose students to people from different backgrounds in order to provide a well-rounded learning experience.

When disadvantaged kids are limited in their paths to college by the application process that follows subpar K-12 schooling, college campuses become dominated by upper-middle class and rich students, with a few poor students on scholarship thrown into the mix.

Meanwhile, the monied classes enter better schools and make their way up, reaping the benefits of good jobs and high pay.

For most Saratoga students, money is no concern. However, rising application fees aren’t just an extra hundred dollars. They are one more barrier that keeps wealthy people wealthy and poor people poor.