Incoming college students, along with having to pay for textbooks, tuition and housing, often spend hundreds of dollars on college applications alone. By having students pay for these applications, it restricts them from reaching their full academic potential.

On average, one application to a university costs $41. With many students applying to several universities, the total cost of applying to college can significantly increase for students.

Fee waivers are commonly issued to those applying to college; however, they restrict students to applying for a certain amount of schools, usually four. Therefore, students may not be able to apply to all of the schools that they want due to financial incapability.

Senior Lily Cao says, “Although colleges do take financial situation into consideration in applications, they would still be missing the potential applicants who didn’t want to risk rejection and loss of money.”

On the other hand, restricting the amount of waivers is meritable, because without a restriction it would make it easy for students to take advantage of this aid.

The money gained from college applications also provides admission directors with the fees they need for meticulously evaluating the large number of applications they receive.

Junior Pareena Sharma says, “With no fees, applicants can treat the application process flippantly. Very competitive colleges receive an overwhelming amount of applications and probably have to pay some of the most qualified admission directors to go through them.”

However in the end, application fees only limit low income students who are not able to keep up with the high cost of college while being academically able. A large pool of applicants who are potential students for colleges will also be lost by continuing to mandate application fees.

Therefore college application fees should be removed to provide all students with a fair chance to apply to all of the colleges they wish to attend.