SUNY temporarily waives application fees for prospective students

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The State University of New York system is piloting a new program which eliminates application fees for a limited period of time.

SUNY announced the program on Oct. 25, writing in a press release that the waiver will last until Nov. 6. Applications will still be open for SUNY schools until Dec. 1. Katherine McCarthy, the associate provost for enrollment management at SUNY ESF, said the program is designed to reduce financial pressures that prospective students face during the admissions process.

“It (also) encourages students to get their application in as soon as possible, and to learn about the academic opportunities within the SUNY system,” McCarthy said.

Deborah Stanley, the interim chancellor for SUNY, shared a similar sentiment to McCarthy, writing in a press release that the program will remove obstacles that prevented prospective students from applying in past years.

“An application fee should not be the deal breaker that prevents an individual from pursuing the many benefits of a higher education,” said Stanley in the Oct. 25 press release.

Application fees can pose a financial burden for students and families looking to apply to colleges and universities throughout the United States, with fees acting as a deterrent to students from even applying to certain schools.

Prospective students can submit as many as five applications to any of SUNY’s 64 campuses before needing to pay the $50 non-refundable deposit for each subsequent application.

Students looking to apply to a SUNY school can submit applications for free either through the Common App or ApplySUNY portals. Within SUNY, there are 58 schools and colleges that accept students’ applications from ApplySUNY and 12 that use their own applications.

Prospective students applying through ApplySUNY will automatically have their first five application fees waived on the payment page. If students choose to apply via the Common App, they must apply campus-by-campus and answer “yes” to the question “Would you like SUNY to cover your application fee?”

McCarthy said that SUNY had previously instituted application fee waivers at one of its campuses to “good results.”

While Syracuse University didn’t directly comment on if it would follow SUNY’s actions and create a waiver-period for applicants, SU’s Senior Associate Vice President for Communications Sarah Scalese wrote in an email to The Daily Orange that the school does provide waivers in certain circumstances. Scalese said the university waives application fees to students who qualify for SAT/ACT fee waivers, or select populations affected by conflict, such as applicants from Iran and Ukraine.

“As a University that seeks to be welcoming to all, we believe in making applying to Syracuse as accessible as possible to talented, promising and diverse applicants, regardless of socioeconomic status or other barriers that may prevent an individual from applying,” Scalese said.

In the past, SUNY has created other programs to benefit prospective students. In Feb. 2021, SUNY announced it would allow students from low-income families to submit up to seven applications for no cost.

McCarthy says she hopes dropping the application fee will result in more campus visits from prospective students and better opportunities for SUNY to provide scholarships and financial aid. McCarthy said schools like ESF are welcome to those opportunities, especially as applications for the school continue to grow.

McCarthy also added that waiving application fees for two weeks is being considered a “pilot” program. She is optimistic about the future of the program, but is unsure what the results will say.

“We are very encouraged, but the real results won’t be known until mid-May, once students make their ultimate decisions,” said McCarthy. “We’ll see what happens in May.”

With students across the country beginning the process of applying to college, McCarthy says waiving application fees will be a positive for both prospective applicants and SUNY.

“We’re encouraging more students to apply, (and) enhanced enrollment is what SUNY is looking for,” said McCarthy.