Colorado recently held their 5th annual Free Application Days from October 18-20 to cap off their Colorado Applies Month. During these three days, 63,976 applications were filed! This is a 2% increase from last year. Notably, 45% of these applications were filed by students of color and 34% by first-generation students.
All residents of Colorado entering undergraduate programs are eligible to apply at all state public universities and some private schools. This includes first-time college students, transfer students, returning students, and students earning a second
bachelor’s degree.
Free application days are gaining traction around the nation. Alabama has been holding a free application week for 10 years now. These were held most recently in spring and fall 2022 and included colleges not only
in Alabama but also nearby states.
Virginia, also in their 10th year of hosting free application days, has a more targeted approach. Students who
attend a registered high school that serves a population where 49.5% or more are eligible for free- or reduced-price lunch can receive a fee waiver to the participating institutions.
This is all amazing and exciting news! Especially since we have seen that when several colleges stopped charging applications fees in 2016, the amount of applications increased.
Even within these colleges that have stopped charging application fees, there has been some pushback. There is no way
around the fact that this would likely be a revenue loss for schools and could overinflate the applicant pool and decrease yield rates. Though the rebuttal from other universities administrators’ was that these potential impacts shouldn’t matter when
considering the benefits of reaching new applicants from historically underrepresented groups.
A 2013 study, Expanding College Opportunities for High-Achieving, Low Income Students, by Caroline
Hoxby and Sarah Turner looked into interventions to get more low-income students to apply to selective schools. They consider several methods, among them a fee waiver. In the end, application behavior showed that students receiving fee waivers were
27% more likely to submit at least five applications than the control group. Not only were these students more likely to apply to schools, but they were also more likely to apply to high-achieving colleges with higher graduation rates and instructional
spending.
Free applications can be the first step towards reaching historically underrepresented students. Have questions about free college applications, state programming to encourage students to take advantage of them, or ideas related to this article? You can
reach me, Caroline Doglio, at doglioc@ncan.org.
Email to a Friend