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Going to university abroad is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but it can be expensive. There’s also one cost you might not have even considered: the application fee.
Many universities charge you to apply for one of their programs, but the good news is we offer application fee discounts when you apply with Studee.
Here’s everything you need to know about application fees when you apply with Studee.
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What are application fees for?
It may seem strange to have to pay to apply for your university program, but there are two main reasons universities charge these fees.
The first is to try and make sure only serious applications are submitted. It can be tempting to apply for lots of programs in order to hedge your bets, including those that you’re not even that interested in studying.
But, if there is a fee to pay, it means you need to think carefully about each application you make. Fees are non-refundable, so you won’t get any money back for any unsuccessful applications, or any you choose to turn down.
The second reason is to cover the administrative costs of reviewing and evaluating each application. Universities can receive thousands of applications for their most popular programs, and it takes a lot of time and resources to assess them all.
How much are university application fees?
The amount you have to pay varies from country to country, university to university, and even program to program.
As a rough guide, application fees can range from $45 to $75 but can go as high as $150 for popular postgraduate programs like MBAs.
All the fees you need to pay should be clearly stated by the university you want to apply to, so make sure you check before starting your application.
Exclusive fee discounts and waivers
One of the many benefits of choosing to make your university application through Studee is that we have arranged exclusive application fee discounts with many universities.
In some cases, we’ve even been able to agree for universities to remove the charge altogether, which means you’ll pay no application fee at all. How can you pay with Studee?
We use Stripe payment service to collect your application fee. Stripe supports more than 135 currencies and is used by some of the world’s biggest companies, including Amazon, Lyft, Google, and Deliveroo.
Using Stripe means you can make your payment in several ways, including:
- Credit card
- Debit card
- Bank transfer
You can also use a number of payment wallets like:
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
- Microsoft Pay
- Secure Remote Commerce (SRC)
There is a range of other payment options available that are popular in your country. For example, Bacs Direct Debit in the UK, Giropay in Europe, Australia, Canada, and the USA, and FPX in Malaysia.
When will you need to pay your application fee?
Before we ask you to pay the fee, we will first assess your application to make sure it has the best possible chance of being accepted.
If your application looks good and ready to submit to the university, we will then ask you to pay your application fee.
Usually, you would pay the fee first before your application is checked and submitted. However, we do it this way because we don’t want you to waste your money on an application that’s unlikely to be successful.
We’ll send you an email to confirm that we’re ready to submit your application, which will include a link to pay the fee. We can’t submit your application until we’ve received your payment, so it’s really important that you pay this as soon as you can.
We don't hold on to the fee, but send it straight on to the university along with the rest of your application.
Why do you pay us?
We ask you to pay the application fee directly to us rather than to the university because we manage the whole submission process for you.
This means we collect all the necessary information and supporting documents together with payments in advance.
This also means we can fully assess your application before any fees are paid, so you won't be paying to apply for programs you're not eligible for.
