More applications means fees will continue to rise

Tuition costs aside, applying to college is expensive.

But Pitt’s financial aid office says… Tuition costs aside, applying to college is expensive.

But Pitt’s financial aid office says increasing application fees is necessary to maintain the admissions process.

For the 2007-08 school year, applying to Pitt cost $45 – up from $35 for the 2002-03 year. Ten years ago, applying to Pitt cost only $25.

“The application process on our end is very labor intensive. We have gone from paper applications to online applications,” B.J. Ore, senior associate director of admissions at Pitt, said. “There are benefits to the technology but also added costs.”

And with the application fee, those costs are passed on to students.

Compared to neighboring universities, Pitt’s application fees are reasonably affordable. Applying to Carnegie Mellon and Duquesne universities for the 2007-08 school year costs an incoming freshman $65 and $50, respectively.

According to collegeboard.com, the average college application fee is $25 or more.

Pitt received over 19,000 freshman applications last school year, and each applicant paid the application fee. Fifty-six percent of these students were accepted.

The $45 paid by each of those 19,000 applicants – more than $850,000 in total – helped pay for computer maintenance, mailing responses and requests to applicants and high schools and the admissions and financial aid staff who assess the applications.

“Sixty percent of the applications were online, so we had to print that. And you couldn’t imagine the rising postal cost for first-class posting,” Ore said.

Seventy-five admissions and financial aid employees at Pitt are responsible for individually reading and responding to each application, contacting high school guidance counselors, responding to recommendation letters and sending out requests for more information.

The application fees even cover the cost of the paper and ink used to print the online applications.

And Pitt’s financial aid office takes the student’s ability to afford the application fee into consideration.

For those students who might have difficulty paying the application fee, the financial aid office suggests that they explore the option of getting a fee waiver. However, Pitt requires a guidance counselor or outside source to verify the need for such a waiver.

“Some students just don’t want to pay the application fees, which is understandable,” Ore said. “And because of that, we need a third party verification to accept the fee waiver.”