As if the essays, submission, and nerve wracking waiting for an admission decision weren’t stressful enough, the most irritating part of the college application process has become very clear to me after actually submitting applications. The most difficult part of applications is the application fee, especially when applying to a multitude of schools.

It becomes especially hard to pay for college applications for early action or priority filing schools. Each university or college application can be up to 80 dollars a piece. For students like me, who apply to many schools under early action programs, that’s a total of around 200 dollars spent on college apps in the span of one or two months. If these schools were the only ones that students were applying to, it wouldn’t be so bad. In addition to the ridiculously high fees, you have to pay to send in your transcript and ACT/SAT scores. The early action deadline also happens to fall right before black Friday and other peak christmas shopping times; money that could be spent buying gifts for people is being spent on ridiculous application fees. But then, there’s regular decision. That means more applications and more money put towards applications. The regular decision deadlines are right after christmas which is a time that’s financially difficult for many people because they’ve just spent a good amount of their money on christmas presents. If we’re already hurting for money before we even apply, how are we supposed to pay for college? I understand that college is a business, but admission officers should offer discounts if people are applying to multiple schools. It becomes way too expensive and too difficult to pay for without some financial assistance. Putting a price on education before we even get to the schools is ridiculous. Application fees need to be reduced.