Most universities in the UK don’t charge application fees especially for undergrad courses. That’s because there is a centralised organisation called UCAS that handles students applications for up to 5 universities and costs a flat rate of £28.50 for the whole process.

UCAS is a non-profit charity.

It’s a bit different for postgrad study because students apply direct to a university rather than via UCAS but it’s only the prestigious institutions and even then only certain heavily oversubscribed courses that would consider charging a fee to apply.

Sounds like a supply and demand issue elsewhere in the world which is certainly not the case in the UK higher education sector.