Registration Fees, or Clever Robbery?

Copy of a letter I sent to a popular Frum forum:

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A while back the issue of playgroups taking a registration fee of $50-$75 was debated. The consensus was that the teachers have the right to ask for this money to be able to buy the necessary supplies for the year.
I would like to raise a much more troublesome and Halachikly questionable practice. I am not familiar with the procedures in other communities, however here in Lakewood, NJ elementary schools request a registration fee of anywhere from $100 to $300.
In my opinion, and everyone I have broached the subject with, this is Chamsanus – extortion. Plain and simple. Almost everyone in Lakewood has to register their child in at least two schools, otherwise they leave open the possibility that their child will be left without a school in the event that the child isn’t accepted by their first choice. Each school expects this registration fee. I know of many people who have to spend close to $1000 on these fees. Most schools receive many more registrations than children, due to the many families having to register their child in more than one school, leaving the schools with a tremendous surplus of registration money.
There is simply no excuse for this. School supplies are purchased based on the amount of children actually attending the school, not on the amount of the applicants. And if it is to compensate for the twenty to thirty minutes of time the registration process expends, no more than $30 would suffice, calculating the office time as $60 for the hour.
I hope this letter gets printed, and helps correct this apparent injustice, which causes unnecessary financial strain to many families already stretched to their budgetary limits.