Carleton’s housing department has introduced an application fee for those applying to residence this year.
As of February 2015, students must pay $100 before submitting a residence application. The fee is non-refundable.
Laura Storey, housing director, said the application fee was implemented to prevent long residence waitlists.
“This fee ensures that only those truly interested and committed are applying,” Storey said in an email.
Last year there was no application fee.
Some students applied without being genuinely interested in living on residence, she added.
Storey said 400 students cancelled or backed out of their application to residence last year.
“This created giant waitlists, many cancellations, and ultimately not allowing Housing to serve those fully interested in living in residence,” she added.
There are currently 3,598 students living in residence, according to the Department of Housing’s website. Assuming only this number of students apply to residence—though, there are many more applications than spots in residence—the revenue generated from the fee would be at least $359,800 a year.
Storey said the residence fees will go towards housing’s general accounts and be used for other housing expenses.
She added the Housing and Residence Life Committee, including residence students and Rideau River Residence Association (RRRA) representatives, support the fee.
Graham Pedregosa, RRRA vice-president (administration) and president-elect, said he has also been told by Housing the fee will hopefully lower the number of applications.
“We’re still looking into where the money from the fee will be going before we form an opinion either way,” he said. “All we know about this fee is what we’ve been told by Housing.”
Storey said they consulted the Ontario Association of Colleges and Universities Housing Officers before coming to a decision.
“Most institutions do have an application fee. We were actually one of the only ones who didn’t,” she said.
Trent University has a $30 residence non-refundable application fee. Wilfred Laurier University and Brock University both charge a $600 deposit that is refundable if you cancel your application before a certain date.
Storey said she doesn’t think refunding the fee would fix the problem of long waitlists.
“If it was refundable, I think we’d be in the same boat,” she said.
Storey added they didn’t implement the fee because other universities had one.
“That wasn’t our reason for doing it. We wanted to just gauge the province on where they were at,” she said.
Storey said the housing committee will review the cost of the application fee in the future.
“Ultimately, the addition of this application fee is to benefit those truly wishing to live in residence,” she said.
Naomi Librach, a first-year journalism student, said she thinks an application fee is unreasonable.
“They have to earn our business, not the other way around,” Librach said.
She added some students might choose to live off-campus instead of paying the fee.
“I think it would be acceptable to charge $100 to apply if this money acted as the first installment of payment towards residence next year,” she said.
Librach said she is disappointed she was not told the reason for the fee adjustment.
“I find this lack of communication and explanation disappointing on behalf of housing,” she said. “I can imagine that students were applying to residence and then turning down offers to go off-campus, which would add a lot of time and effort to the housing staff’s job.”
Brittany Dalzell, a first-year criminology student, said she thinks it’s reasonable for Carleton to charge an application fee.
“I still think that $100 is too much and we should be informed of where this money goes,” she said.
Storey said students were informed of the application fee via Carleton’s website and RRRA’s student representatives.
“There’s a potential for a new building and they’re hoping to have a really solid waitlist in order to go ahead with that building,” Storey said.
