Applying to college can be stressful, especially for applicants with low incomes. Beyond the usual worries of acceptance and scholarship chances, they must weigh every expense, including application fees.
Nearly all local schools that charge fees allow limited waivers, but Brown University recently expanded beyond those efforts to attract applicants with financial hardships. The Ivy League school announced it will automatically waive application fees for any prospective student who qualifies for a free or reduced-price lunch through the National Student Lunch Program, starting with the class entering in fall 2018.
The university has historically accepted application-fee waivers – which credit the required $75 fee – for students with low incomes through the College Board and the National Association for College Admission Counseling, as well as direct requests.
In the announcement, Logan Powell, Brown’s dean of admission, said: “We expect that this approach will not only encourage more talented students from low-income backgrounds to apply, but will also complement our broader commitment to meeting the full demonstrated financial need of every student.”
Powell could not provide data showing whether Brown might be missing out on candidates for admission because of the application fee, which he called “a barrier for some students.
“It is difficult or impossible to prove a negative,” he said in an email. “It is likely that, in the past, highly capable students simply chose not to apply because they didn’t think they could afford the cost of the application fee.”
Brown could not say how many additional applications it expects the NSLP waiver criteria would generate, or how much money the admissions department might lose.
Rather than the product of a detailed cost-benefit analysis, the decision appears to be a small step in the school’s push to increase diversity across campus, outlined in its 15-month-old Pathways to Diversity and Inclusion: An Action Plan for Brown University.
Powell said the new waiver criteria was developed with the help of current Brown students who “very clearly remembered the complications of applying due to the perceived barriers to entry presented by application fees.”
Of the other eight degree-granting schools in the state with application fees, only New England Institute of Technology doesn’t offer a waiver for the charge, which is $25.
The Community College of Rhode Island on April 3 eliminated its $20 application fee.
Johnson & Wales University is the only other higher education institution in the state without an application fee.
“By eliminating what might be a financial barrier for some, we believe this is one way to make the college-application process more affordable,” said JWU spokesman Ryan J. Crowley.
