Why do undergrad university applications cost a decent chunk?

[Flyback]

I applied to one school and forked over $173 CAN ($150 USD).

Do they/officials/admission panel even look at it longer than 5 minutes?

Guess I shouldn't complain given that we have highly subsidized universities

 

[Parasitic]

because they can and it's essentially an oligopoly.

 

[orakle]

For what it's worth, my two applications were only about $60 apiece. So it's not everywhere in Canada.

 

[Rayden]

The one to the school I'm going to now was free. However tuition is an entirely different story.

 

[holden j caufield]

I used to work in the accounting dept for the biology dept at our university. The wasteful use of money was so ridiculous it would make any sane person cringe. I also had a work study job in the engineering dept, just sorting out apps to give to professors who would glance over them. It's so overcharged and a lot of apps were from out of state students (mostly China). I forget the $ amount but they charged the out of state applicants at least 2 or 3 times more money eventhough the apps were all basically the same.

 

[wiredspider]

To weed out non serious candidates? If no fee, then nothing really to stop someone from applying to tons of schools = more work for admissions, etc...