To be clear, what the University of Florida does before applicants are admitted is ask them to pay a $25 housing application fee if they want to live in university dorms if they enroll. Applicants who wouldn’t live in the dorms don’t have to pay. And the basic application fee is also $25. A student applying for admission who would live in a dorm if he or she is accepted and enrolls pays $50 (absent fee waivers).
The same student would pay $75 to apply to the University of Texas and $70 to apply to the University of Georgia. (But only $30 to apply to Florida State.) That makes me feel a little less hostile about this. It’s essentially an application fee break for local applicants and applicants who can’t afford to live in the dorms.
Later on, they give admitted students the opportunity to pay an only-partially-refundable $175 deposit to get in the queue for dorm assignment. I think that’s actually sort of common, although I think most universities refund the full housing deposit if the student decides to go elsewhere by May 1.