Transcripts For CSPAN3 Student Aid Application 20171129

Senate committee on Health Education and pensions will please come to order. Im usually on time and excuse me for being late. We reauthorize a Higher Education act. Today were looking at ways to simplify the free application for student aid or fafsa to make it easier for students to apply for federal Financial Aid. Well introduce the witnesses and after your testimony senators will have five minutes of questions. Senators may be coming and going because of the tax bill. Nearly four years ago in a hearing before this committee an unusual thing happened. Four witnesses from diverse back grntds agreed that almost all of the 108 questions on the free application for federal student aid or fafsa are unnecessary. The fafsa is the government form 20 million families fill out every year to qualify for it federal aid that helps nearly 20 Million Students attend universities. Weve spent a lot of time holding this to remind people of all it questions even though most people fill it out online. Theres still the same number of questions. End of the hearing i asked the witnesses if they could simplify the fafsa in four separate letters to us they said they could do it together in one letter. Senator bennet and i then had the same reaction. If theres that much consensus on how to make it easier for nearly 20 million families to apry for federal aid, why dont we actually do it . Well, that was four years ago. Senator bennet and i set about to turn 108 questions into two. On a post karbd that dr. Scott clayton, who is here today recmebded in her testimony four years guy. Are lets take a moment to talk about why simplifying the fafsa is important. Which means if you elect, youll have to fill it out again to continue to receive your aid for sophomore year and beyond. Weve heard over and over iagain how difficult it is the first time. Second, this complexity frustrates it goal of the pel grant which is to help low if hadcome Students Attend College because it discourages them from apply frag aid. I know in tennessee post secondary education is nou free, the complexity of the fafsa is the single biggest impediment to more students taking advantage of what we call tennessee promise. The former president in memphis bleechbs he loses 1500 students each simester because of the complexity of the form. Third, this wastes time and money that can be better spent using the right major and understand the impacts of taking out student loans. After four years of discussion over how to simplify the fafsa, it is time to come to a result. Our first ord orch business after the first of to the year will be to markup a reauthorization in the Higher Education act. Our central focus will be to make it simpler and easier to apply for federal aid and to pay their loans back and to cut through the jungle of red tape that federal law and regulations imposes so College Administrators can spend their time and money instead for the benefit of students. We have a number of bipartisan proposals that seek to do the same things. Senator bennet, ber, isaacson, king and booker introduced our legislation to cut 108 questions down to two questions. We have listened to students, College President s. We have done this in a bipartisan way for four years. Well hear some of those good ideas today. Senator murray as a bill to simplify for homeless students and students without parents. We work would the Obama Administration to allow students to fill out with their Tax Information from two years before they if had role in college instead of one so they could file in the fall, rather than wait in the spring. The result is senator ben squt i are completing a bill to reduce 108 questions to as few as 15 and no more than 25 questions depending on how you answer questions about your family. We will do this prince pale by taking the Tax Information that americans give to the federal government and incorporating that Tax Information into the fafsa. Over and over again ive been asked if ive already given my Tax Information to the federal government, dwhie i have to give it again to the fafsa . My information is you shouldnt have to. Once is enough. Our proposal will tell students the amount of their pel grant, money they dont have to pay back, instead of after theyve already been accepted for schools. I have a long perspective on this. As education secretary i over saw the implementation of it first fafsa shortly before i left office. While the fafsa is a complex form today it was actually created then to reduce the burden on students by combining state, and Financial Aid applications if to one single application. The first had four pages of kwelgzs and 12 pages of directions. Todays fafsa is 10 pages with directions included on the form plus an additional 66 pages of instructions. Now 25 years later i sit here as chairman of the Senate Education committee trying to update the Higher Education act and once again simplify how they apry for federal fine angle aid. I want our committee to discuss different proposals and write and pass a final bill. 25 years after the first fafs and after the first hearing, it is time to bring it discussion to a result. Weicide be able to say to the nearly 20 million families if had stead of answering 1 heir 8 questions, you only have to answer 15 to 25. Once is enough. To give your basic information about family size and income to the federal government and if stead of waiting until youve been admitted to college, well tell you about your pell grant while youre still shopping around for schools. Thank you very much for, mr. Chairman and i want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today. I look forward to hearing from all of you about your experiences with the fafsa form and how we can best improve access to federal Financial Aid. However, navigating fafsa is one of the many challenges students are facing and for them they dont come up one at a time. Theyre are are had wrapped together. College students are taking on mountains of debt and theyre concerned about finding a job after school, whether its preparing them for the work force and respected by employers and a lot more. So in order to epihad our students, we have to make sure were trying to solve the big problems as well as the smaller ones. We need tackle the issues that Impact College students the most and i believe on this committee that has done so much good Work Together that we can do that. Thats why its so critical we take a compry hencive approach to update the Higher Education act. Chairman alexander and i have heard concerns that pursuing a comp reense haddive approach would be too difficult. In these partisan times well never be able to get it done and thats what we heard, by the way bfore we did no child left behind. People said it was too toxic to touch. They said we should just focus on low hanging fruit and leave the rest for another time, another congress. Thankfully chairman alexander and i pushed those nay sayers aside. We got to work and we got it done. So im hopeful and confident we can Work Together on a comp reense haddive aproach to reauthirthe act. There are too many issues when it comes to accessing affordable, high quality education. Weve got to take a holistic aproach to Higher Education reform to build a system that epis the most students. We can Work Together to address issues like fafsa simp luification and i know how imp portent that is and we must also tackle the big problems this critical law aims to address. Because i believe in order to truly solve it challenges students face, we have to address four major issues, the rising cost of college, School Programs not held had accountable for students success. Barriers for working families, students of color and first generation students to attend college and ongoing threats to runnering in a safe environment. Theyre whether import ntd. First, weve got to address sky rocketing costs of college and find ways for more students to graduate without debt and we must consider the full cost beyond just tuition. Housing, textbooks, child care. Secondly we need to make sure colleges and Work Force Training programs are producing good outcomes for students and preparing them for the jobs of tomorrow and being held accountable with had that is ntd the case and that as to include providing stutdants with the information they need to make smart choices about their future befear they enroll in classes with an expensive price tag. Third, we need improve underrepresented students ability to access Higher Education and finally we need insure every student as it ability to learn in a safe if environment, free from discrimination and violence and that must if hadclude doing more to combat the National Epidemic of Campus Sexual Assault and beginning to address dangerous hazing practices. Of course simplifying the fafsaicide be part of our reauthorizatio reauthorization. Ive heard had across my state how complicated and difficult fill thouth application can be. Simplifying fafsa would help ease the burden of College Costs for students who may be leaving money on the table and by addressing concerns from nontraditional backgrounds we can help open the doors of opportunity to students who otherwise might not get the Financial Aid they need. And security requirements, verification, refiling the form each year can create real barriers for students who deserve our help. While its clear simplifying would help, it aloan cannot solve the challenges that families across the country face in addressing and affording Higher Education. So this is a good first step and i hope we can continue this conversation with a comprehensive solution in mind and have hearings on a variety of issues impacting their students and families. This committee has a history of Bipartisan Solutions to complex problems and i am confident. Our students are counting on the and before i close i want to make one final point. Its so important i feed to mention before we get too deep. One of the largest hurdles is how secretary devoes and the department of education are today picking and choosing when to follow laws written by this committee and passed by the congress. Right now secretary devos and her department are blatantly violating the k12 law we just updated two years ago. They wont follow the very stat ware language this committee settled on. You and i Work Together on every Student Succeeds act. We reached an agreement while ifcluding clear requirements in the statute. Theyre in black and white. Theyre in the law and have nothing to do with regulations. And i had deeply troubled that vilashz oz of the law are being ignored by the department of education. The law requires in statute that states identify three distinct categories of schools for improvement. Bottom 5 , all schools where one subgroup is consistently underperforming and schools where any subgroup is performing as poorly as the bottom 5 . But plans are now being approved that violate this and there are more examples id be happy to talk through but chairman, alexander if today it department is choosing to implement whatever it feels like, which i believe they are in the approval of state plans so far, this this committee needs to hear from the secretary directly on how she intends to fall though Laws Congress agrees to shall especially as we begin to reauthorize the hea. I hope we can hear from the Department Soon and then i believe we can begin addressing the critically important issues in Higher Education. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator murray for your comments on both subjects and ill be looking forward to talking to you about following the law. We even put provisions in the law to prohib hadt a secretary from doing certain things. As far as Higher Education, i agree with what you said. Im eager to sit down and visit with you and get started on reauthorizing the Higher Education act. We figured out how, in this committee too, tackle big issues and accommodate lots of points of views and come out with results and i think people appreciate it when we do. My hope would be that we can take the bipartisan work over it last three or four years really and turn it if had to a result in the First Quarter of next year and i look forward to working with you on that. Im pleased to welcome our witnesses to todays hearing focussed on simplifying the fafsa. Like to ask senator ben toot introduce the first witness. Thank you, mr. Chairman and id like to thank you and Ranking Member murray for focusing our attention on the important issue. I want to thank you for your partnership on fafsa. I know our first witness agrees with what were trying to do. Its my plesher to introduce nancy from my home state of colorado. For the last 13 years shes served as president of the Colorado Community college system. The largest system in the state that educates one out of three of our undergraduate students. Theyve launched ambitious initiatives to make college more affordable. Under her leadership, the system revamped the Education Program and streamlined so they can graduate faster and with less debtd. So more students can pursue a ninetyfouryear degree and increased saving our students and families roughly 90 million in tuition costs. Her leadership in Higher Education is just the latest chapter in a career of public service. Previously served in theed ministration and as chief economist for the legislature. She announced her retirement. And thanked for her servees to colorado and her time to join us this morning. I now recognize senator cane for ms. Williams. Thank you and all to the chair and ranking. Its an honor to introduce Elaine Williams who is a richmonder just like me but here because of her really inspirational work as a community advocate. Ms. Williams is a recent graduate of the Virginia Common Wealth University School Social work and i have bcu grads and social Work Programs on my staff. She currently works with the wyca helping people avoid homelessness and she was an unaccompanied homeless child coming if to college and grappling with fafsa. Especially not just the form but the verification requirements of fafsa. So i hope well get if had to the form and the issues. Now she is the cofounded change it world rva which is a Nonprofit Organization to serve youth experiencing homelessness in richmond and in college she work would a group called advocates for richmond youth, a passion for homeless kids is a big driver for her. So thank you for your dedication and your Inspirational Service and we look forward to hearing from you today about how we can better serve young people who face some of the same challenges you face. Our third witness is dr. Clayton. Shes an education at Teachers College columbus university. Community College Research center and the brookings institution. Shes testified before the senate twice. Earlier including in the hearing four years ago that led to the fast act. She made her first fafsa simplification proposal in 2007. She earned her ph. D. From harva harvard. Our next witness is mr. Justin draeger, president of the National Association of student Financial Aid administrators. His organization represents those who serve 90 of american College Students. Prior to becoming president of his organization he worked as a Financial Aid director regulatory policy analyst and spokesperson. Dr. Kim reuben in the Tax Policy Center that irving institute. Her research focuses on fiscal institutions, Public Sector labor markets, state and local tax policy and budgets. He conducted a Detailed Analysis of various fafsa proposals today. She earned her ph. D. From m. I. T. As a reminder if youll sums are your testimony in five minutes, that will leave more time for senators to ask questions and i would simply mention this is what we call a bipartisan hearing which means senator murray and i have agreed on the subject and weve agreed on the witnesses. So it ought to be a good discussion. Why dont we begin with dr. Mccallen and well go down the line. Welco welcome. Thank you. Thank you, chairman alexander, Ranking Member murray and members of the committee. Thank fryou fl the opportunitie to speak food. The colorado serving approximately 138,000 students at 13 colleges in 39 locations. And despite the fact we intentionally keep our tuition low, our students do strug tool pay for college. Approximately 40 of our students receive some form of federal or state fine apancial and when you factor in our nonHigh School Students, about half qualify for federal Financial Aid or state Financial Aid through the form. Altogether our students receive 211 million of Financial Aid. 90 million of which is the pell grant and 33 to pursue their secondary education. If creasingly we know the tick toot succeeding in this Economy Today to have a post 2ndary degree. 74 of our post of our new jobs being created in the state of colorado by 2020 require some form of post secondary education. And we know that comcan pleating the fafsa form is difficult, complex and daunting for many of our students. Particularly for first generation students to comprise 54 of our overall student population. Community colleges have persistently had the lowest fafsa Completion Rate of any sector of Higher Education. Despite it fact that we know we have it largest number and share of low ifcome students and by not completing the fafsa forms, what we see happening is students foregoing their opportunity for Higher Education and to succeed in this increasingly complex and competitive economy. When asked why tid they not complete the form, they had numerous reasons. They thought they were ineligible. 25i didnt want tago to into debt and that does not require you to go into debt. And many have missed the opportunity to get those grants to further their education. The lengthy application with the 66 pages of instructions is the first barrier to completing the fafsa form. The next barrier and a significant challenge for us is the verification process. Our Financial Aid administrators estimate 1 4 of their time is spent on the verification process. In our system 94,169 students submitted the fafsa form last year. But only 53582 actually cull pleated the form and of the 94,000, approximately 37,000 were selected for verification which is somewhat higher than the National Average and of those students selected only 16 thousand 728 completed the process. The complexity and length of the form and the confusion over what number to put in what box on the form, all together really has limited and precluded access to Higher Education. And this simple act of simplifying the form really could go a long way towards improving access and ehelp hadding students get their degree and therefore compete in the economy. And we know if we were able to free up some of our Financial Aid administrators time and not have to have them do extensive verification support. We Completion Rates anywhere from 6 to 11 Percentage Points. We could help in Financial Literacy more than we do today. We can provide more increased support and have precollegiate outreach. One of the biggest concerns we have is of 100 ninth graders, only 43 are going to college. Its abizmal for students of color in particular. As a result it could definitely help students pursue their goals. So thank you for you your attention to helping improver Higher Education for our 1250udants and im open to questions you may have. Good morning. The problem of Youth Homelessness is bigger than many people realize. A new National Report at it university of chicago found at least 700,000 youth between the ages of 13 to 17 and 3. 5 million young adults between the ages of 13 to 25 experience homelessnessness in a year. This represents one in 30 between the ages of 13 to 17 and 1 in 10 young adults between kwaenl to 25. I was one of them. Mine began in middle school. My mother was not able to help me due to struggles in Mental Health and drug problems. My mother lost custody of me at one point. I moved in with relatives without a stable place to stay six different times. Two months before high school graduation, i had had to stay with one of my friends. I knew i had to continue to pursue my dreams of college. I grew up in poverty and did not see Anyone Around me going to college. I wanted Something Different for myself and future. But as i tried to fill out the fafsa, the counselor kept asking for my mothers Financial Information. I finally broke down and told her my mother was not in the picture. She contacted the high School Social worker who asured me i could go to college. She allowed me to fill out the fafsa. Soon after i was accepted to virginia university. Unfofrp if thely i needed to live on campus at Virginia Union to go to school, which added to the cost. I had had to work, which prevented me from fulfilling the hours needed for one of the scholarships. So i lost that scholarship. I asked the Financial Aid office for assistance and they told me to take a year off from work. This time at virginia commonwealth university. Although i many great experiences, the fafsa process presented obstacles. They required me to submit two letters to verify my status as well as other kinds of documentations. I lost out on grants awarded on a first come, first serve basis. I had to take out more loans. The following year fafsa experience was even worse. The Financial Aid aufrs told me because i was no longer in high school they wont accept a letter from the social worker. They demanded a certain let certain kinds of homeless shelters but there are no homeless shelters for youth and adult shelters told me to stay with family members, which was impossible. Every year it was daunting to answer questions 53 and 54. It was troms itting to explain my situation over and over to strangers and feel like they didnt believe me. It also contributed to my student debt because i lost out on a lot of grants caused by documentations requirements. Despite all of that, i graduated in may of 2017. Now work at the ywca of richmond. Im a role mod tool my four young siblings and my peers in the community. My three top recommendations for congress to make the fafsa simpler are eliminate the requirement for unaccompanied Homeless Youth to have their status determined each year. This requirement creates more paperwork burdens for students and adds to our trauma. Second, reduce the documentations requirements for determining that a youth is homeress and unaccompanied. If a youth has cogumentation, the Financial Aid office should accept it and third, requiring colleges and universities to designate a staff person single point of contact to help Homeless Youth and foster youth just like mckinney liaisons. We need a person who connects us to resources on and off campice and helps us navigate Financial Aid. In closing i would like to thank you for this opportunity and hope my testimony will help inform decision about the fafsa for youth just like me. Thank you. Thats an impressive testimony and impressive effort that youve made. We thank you for coming. Dr. Scott clayton, welcome back. Thank you. My role i think is to briefly share a few Key Research Findings related to the topic which formed my own policy recommendations. First access to College Matters more now than ever. Those have not own low more stable employment, theyre also more likely to vote. And please note that when im talking about college, im not just talking about the traditional fouryear degree but the full range of post secondary education that federal student aid supports. Second, decades of Rigorous Research across a range of contexts, shows us that Financial Aid works. New evidence shows that it can also help students graduate faster and can read to higher earnings and higher rates of Home Ownership after college as well. And yet, despite rising returns to college and despite substantial amounts of Financial Aid, the gap between high and low ifcome families is actually bigger than it was a generation ago. Federal student aid needs to do more to narrow this gap. The details of Program Design really matter. Unfortunately the federal student aid programs hide their benefits nad thickt of bureaucracy and this is embodied in the fafsa. For many families filling out a fafsa is more complicated than their annual income taxes. It took unhadses of lines of code to describe. But by this point everyone knows that its annoying. But we wouldnt be here today if it were just about an annoyance. Research shows and weve just heard that the form itself has become a significant barrier to college access. Its complexity and lack of transparency makes it very hard for students to figure out what theyre eligible for and it generates unnecessary hurdles, just as students are juggling many other responsibilities and navigating their path to college. We dont have to speculate about whether the fafsa is really a barrier. Several high quality randomized expe experiences have shown with they receive assistance filling out and submitting the form, enrollment and retention rates increase. One study found providing asishance increased College Enrollment by eight points. We could do even better. My fourth key finding from research is that all this complexity is not even necessary to accurately predict what students will qualify for. Analysts including myself have conducted simulations in which real applications are run through but with various elements disregarded. These show both pell eligibility and the expected family contribution or efc can be replicated with a dhie gree of accuracy using only a handful of key items. Asset information is perapse it biggest surprise. For the vast majority of applicants they dont play any role at all or even thin broader calculation of efc. So the benefits of complexity are small while the costs are very large. So my fifth and final conclusion is that simplification is impinantly feasible. We can do this. Progress has already been made in eliminating questions for umthe form, automatically importing ninformation from the irs. But overall a major source of hassle and confusion. We can do much better and it remaining heard hadals are completely surmountable. Various groups have offered alternative plans including myself. Theres more than one path to meaningful and effective simp luification as longs it it achieves two goals. First, minimizing hassle and second, maximizing transparency. This leads me to the following recommendations. First we should base pelawards on a limited number of data from the irs so no separate financial application is necessary. Second provide institutions with a efc or simulated efc. Allowing students to plan for a multiyear course of study without needing to reapply multiple time times. Sums are on a post card that schools, counselors can post and distribute. And finally use irs information to communicate to Prospective Students about their likely pell eligibili eligibility. I look forward to your questions. Thank you. Thank you, dr. Scott clayton. Mr. Draeger, welcome. Thank you. In 2014 senator alexander, you came and spoke to several thousand administrators and proposed a twoquestion fafsa. And that created quite a dust up amongst our membership. Not because they dont wants to make the application simpler but when you look at the amount of grant aid delivered every year in this country, 40 billion whiches from the federal government. 58 billion of it comes from institutions. And another 25 billion come from state and outside scholarship providers. The context i want to paint is there are other entities awarding significant amount of grant aid that have a interest in doing two things. One, which i think were pretty much all in alinement on is making it as easy as possible and that includes making the verification process as easy as possible. But the second piece is making sure we have accurate data to effect the financial strength of every family. At its core needbased grants come down to a few basic principals. The first is this. The primary responsibility to pay for college is that of the student and family and those who cant afford should. And second, is where they dont have the means to pay for college we sld a web of grant providers, ifcludes it federal, state and inhad stugzs and scholarship providers and we ask them to complete some sort of application to assess their need. The unifying concept of the fafsa is they could try and rely on one form so we dont have fragments of multiple forms throughout it process. So the trade off weve been talking about for years is one, how many questions do we ask and as few as possible to make it easy and two, how accurately do we want to determine the applicants strength . I think the good news is a lot has changed since this conversation started and after convening a group of practicing aid directors from all different types of schools and where weve come technologically, i think we can break out of this trade off weve been grappling with for years. Our proposal and it aligns well with other independent proposals relies on existing data bases of information that would prepopulate or autofill for applicants providing verified information so students and families would no longver to go through a arduous verification process with the school. Our first pathway would be for low if hadcome students who kp from backgrounds where they may not make enough money to file tax returns. These families probably already qualify for specific means tested federal benefits like snap and ssi. In those inhadstances, its a matter of linking data bases to qualify for full pell eligibility. Those are your 1040 without schedules, 1040 ez or a. They are all the information we need to determine their pell eligibility and in most instances school and state eligibility. So if we could prepopulate or import that from the tax return, we could dramatically reduce it number of questions they provide and they dont have significant assets as demonstrated boo itheir tax return. The third pathway is for those with complicated tax returns and thereby complicated financial situations. We dont think its necessarily an issue to have a slightly more complicated form for families with complicated financials. That would be demonstrated by schedules with business income, Real Estate Investments or other types of if vestments a lot of other peleligible students dont have. Still, we could get the musdwlofmajority of it information from the tax reform. If we start moving towa verified data up front. One point about simplicity and complexity. Creating an application process i just described would produce some complexity but not for the applicants. Thats the part were focused on income and tax forms and transferring data and databases thats all back end complexity. I dont know we ought to skew complexity at the back end if at the same time it maintains integrity and accuracy on the front end and ultimately makes its easier for applicants. I provided a handout that show the pathways i just described. Thank you. Dr. Rubin, rum. Chairman alexander, Ranking Member murray and members of the committee. Thank you for allowing me to discuss the fafsa. These are my own feelings. It allows millions of students to apply for Financial Aid as my colleagues have shown and provides significant barriers for more students, mostly low generation students and its to provide for those who need it but only those who need it. Policymakers have made some progress to simplifying it, adding skip logic, and using the irs data retrieval tool and basing awards on prior year income. Theres still work to be done. The application process is still cumbersome and the complex formula makes it difficult for students to know their eligibility before they apply for college. It increases the effectiveness of broadening Educational Opportunities and especially important for lowincome students least likely to attend college and could benefit the most from an improved student aid application system. My written testimony includes fafsa simfication proposals including those of my colleagues sitting to my right made over the last few years. This is based on earlier work where we made applestoapples comparison of costs and distribution of benefits of different options. Some proposals like the fast act would ask a few questions to calculate pell grant awards. Others like fafsa calculates pell and other aids but simplify the existing system on technology and income Tax Information. They all highlight the possibility of an easier system. I believe it is time to decouple the process of awarding pell grants from the rest of the Financial Aid award system. However, it would still be important to maintain a universal federal application from other types of aide. Five following steps. First determine pell eligibility using just a few pieces of information, such as Family Income, family size and family relationships. Two, make pell Grant Eligibility an application available through an app or tool accessed using a smartphone or tablet not just the computer. I think were beyond the postcard phase where people are comfortable using their phone to figure these things out. Maintain a universal Application Form that eliminates the need for applicants to view questions they just dont understand. Including far fewer questions to be downloaded directly from tax returns. This probably means we have to change the irs data retrieval system to make simfication possible by providing an indicator for the presence of business or capital income that would trigger additional questions about a students wealth. A simplified pell program would make it more predictable for lowincome students, even those attending college. Many of the nuances can be met by providing information about Family Structure and changing aid formulas. We can differentiate between a two person family with two adults, a parent and a child. I would go to a three factor system. I would suggest providing pell grants after answering three simple questions. What is your Family Income. How many people are in your family and are you or one of your family members a depend child. And i suggest a federal system for accessing other aid so we dont return to a system where students need to fill out a myriad of forms at each state level for the application process. Im excited to si the committee continue this important work i hope will lead to more students, especially first generation or lowincome students attending college. Thank you for the opportunity to testify and i look forward to answering any questions you have. Thank you very much for a very interesting testimony. Well now go to five minute rounds of questions. I will step down the hall and introduce a witness a president ial nominee at another hearing. I should be back in a few minutes. Senator murray agreed to chair the committee during that time. Senator murkowski has the first questions. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I agree. Very interesting panel. Its important to recognize there is nobody here on the panel this morning that thinks that the system we have in place for the application and requirements we have in place is good and needs to be maintained. I think there is a recognition that we must do more to make sure we do not put in place barriers. I appreciate the recognition theres a difference between a form that is annoying and just kind of a pain to fill out and something that is truly a barrier. I hear far far too often that it is a barrier, that you have young people that look at it and say, i cant even go there. They bring their parents into the picture and they too give up. I do think its important we look to ways to not only simplify, but to your point, miss rubin, lets come into todays world. The fact were talking about postcards, if i were to ask my son to mail a postcard i dont know where hed find a stamp. The reality that we are doing so much on our smartphones, this ought not be one of those where we say we just cant do it. I think, as were looking to making it simpler,lates also use the tools young people are using, which is your device, your phone there. I wanted to ask just a little bit. Theres been good discussion about the verification steps that need to go into place. I think we can all agree we need to work to address that more readily. But dr. Mccallum, you had mentioned the efforts that we could make to work with young people earlier on so that they dont get discouraged, even before they get to a more truncated process hopefully were going to put into place. You mentioned precollegiate outreach. When we have talked about healthcare and enrollment in healthcare plans when the aca was advanced, there was a role designated for navigators. We know within the Healthcare System you can have a Patient Navigator that can help you move through the system. Do we need i understand that we have counselors in our schools, although in my view, not enough. Do we need navigators or can we make this simple enough we dont need to do that, we shouldnt need a navigator. Senator murkowski. Navigators are a wonderful idea. The Completion Rates came from a navigator program. I hadnt quite thought of doing it in high school. Certainly, when we have focus groups in high school that is one of their big issues, they need somebody to fill out the form and hold their hand and navigate them into college. Another program we have found very successful getting students into college who otherwise wouldnt have done so is dual enrollment, offering credit bearing courses to High School Students. We have found an increase in college of going rates of 23 Percentage Points even after adjusting and assuring that you have the same academic preparation and same income levels of those students. We have a far higher rate than those who have not. What we call focus centers in the Denver Public schools, where you have to go in and use their services to apply for fafsa and as well to apply for other scholarships and the current enrollment have all proven to be good success stories. Thank you. I want to thank you for your testimony here today i think is very helpful and instructive. Thank you for your determinedness, your efforts to stick with a process that was not easy, that probably made its easier for you to quit at every turn and you did not. You graduated. Congratulations to you. I think youre an extraordinary role model for so many. Would it have been helpful to you prior to even considering college to have something at the High School Level that would have allowed you to more readily move towards it . You sound to me to be the type of young woman that is going to get around all the odds but you also know others that were in a similar situation. How can we make its easier . Thank you for that question. For me, it was a little different because i was a part of a program in high school. I was part of the upward Bound Program that really exposed me to Higher Education, which really gave me that drive to pursue Higher Education. However, i think the point of contact should be put in place on the college level, going into your first year. Because for me, i had the grasp program, which is a program that works around helping High School Students to fill out your fafsa and get your documentations done. I had that in high school and when it came to college i didnt have those resources. There wasnt a Contact Person. Coming into vcu as a transfer student i didnt know how to navigate that. It was different going from a private school to public institution. To me, it would be more point of contact at the universities for students with unstable housing and homelessness. Very good. Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I want to thank senator murray for yielding to me because i have to run off to do something else. In the last conversation, my friend from alaska really put her finger on something so important. When i was superintendent of Public Schools we had a local couple he was a graduate of lincoln high school. The Marcus Family created something called the denver scholarship foundation. What they said was no kid that graduated from high school in denver would be barred from going to college because of finances, we would find a way. And in order to be eligible they had to apply for two other scholarships and in order to do that they had to fill out the fafsa form. Pretty quickly we figured out that was a huge pain point. And we had to hire people to take people through these forms. People listening to this at home, this is not a form beyond the skill of our kids to do because theyre poor or because theyre homeless, this form is ridiculous. Miss williams pointed to some of the most egregious part of this form relates to homeless children. My memory is there are three different questions asked to tell you whether or not youre homeless. You get to a certain point of the form youre halfway through, youre homeless, you can go to a simpler part of the form. We do need people to help but also as we heard today in this testimony we need to simplify this form. I wanted to ask and there has been discussing today earlier about the concept of a tradeoff the idea by simplifying the form we risk using data granularity and giving aid to students that dont need it. I believe the risk lies in the other direction, the current process complicated intimidates talented capable students letting bureaucratic red tape stand between students and Higher Education is it own kind of tradeoff, one we accepted far too long in my view. I wonder if you could talk what the effects of simplification are in Financial Aid awards. Most students see a drastic change in the award using the formula. Questions about untaxed income alter the awards . Thank you for that question. Just briefly i want to note on the postcard thing, purely conceptual. Lets make it on a smartphone. The idea is get the amount of information down so you can explain it simply to people. We have, mr. Chairman, even more unity than when you left. With respect to simplification and how it will affect Financial Aid, one of the most surprising things when we first started doing this reach in 2006, 2007, was how little so many of these questions matter, especially assets, so complicated for families to answer. Its not something asked on the tax form, its not something most families have a single number, you have to do a lot of work to understand what counts and doesnt count. When it comes down to it most of that information doesnt get used for anything because the form does exclude home equity, does exclude Retirement Savings and on top of that it excludes another chunk, higher than the level most families have. I think some of the worry is understandable, actually when you do these simulations it turns out to not matter very much. You can get down to eight questions for the vast majority, 45, 80, 90 most replicate the pell program and esc, used for a wider range of purposes within a fairly narrow wrong. 500 of the original amount. Ufcs used for state aid and institutional said, i completely understand the schools are using that for other purposes. It is true some simplification does make a difference for efc applications, above the need needed to distribute. I think institutions there at have a lot of their own aid to distribute need to have accuracy. A lot of them are already using a separate form. Im not sure how many schools are in that window where they need the extra complexity but not already using this other form. I would just add i think it would be important i would separate the two, right, might be a little bit of splitting the baby. I think if we had pell grant awards based on a couple questions people understand that would be step one and might encourage them to keep going and put in the other information. We dont want to return to a world people are filling out different forms for different states and colleges. Having something easy at the beginning but triggers them to go on and fill out the more important other questions would be useful, i think. Im out of time or over time. I wanted to go ahead, senator bennet. I wanted to make one other observation you and the Ranking Member talked about the beginning of this hearing, from dr. Scott claytons testimony while the enrollments are higher across the board, the gaps are more than recent cohorst. What that means is today the gap between People Living in poverty and not with respect to attaining Postsecondary Education is greater than the 1960s. That is intolerable. It is my hope this committee not just with fafsa, can help us answer that question about why we find ourselves in that position. Not a place our kids should be in a world we discovered having Postsecondary Education is so important to fulfill the employment needs of this economy. I didnt want to let this go without underscoring that important fact. Thank you for being here mr. Chairman and your leadership. Thank you, senator bennet. Senator murray. Thank you very much to all our witnesses. Its been very informative. Miss williams, i want to start with you. Were very happy youre here today and want to congratulate you what youve accomplished. Youre inspiring. You were able to make your way through a very complicated Financial Aid process. I have introduced legislation to streamline the process for unaccompanied and Homeless Youth called the higher Financial Information for success. Thank you for your comments on that. We know that wont solve all the challenges that face students. Once you were able to get through the fafsa, what kind of financial pressures did you experience that might inform us of the entire process. Thank you for that question. For me, the financial pressure was having to work full time while being a full time student, to take care of basic needs like food, Hygiene Products and textbooks, things of that nature. Transportation back and forth to work. After i received my Financial Aid package it covered tuition and room and board but it didnt cover a meal plan or having Mental Health services and things of that nature. Without that point of Contact Person, i didnt know how to get the contact for the other Wraparound Services i needed at the university. For me, the housing and how much it cost to live on campus and if you are facing unstable housing and homelessness you couldnt stay at home. Even though im from richmond i couldnt stay at home. Living on campus was a priority for me. Because i didnt qualify for a lot of grants it was i was thinking in debt now because of loans. It wasnt just your tuition, all the other costs to get through it. Thank you. In your written testimony you clearly demonstrate fafsa and Financial Issues were not the only obstacles you faced. Talk to me a little bit about the other types of supports you wish you would have had that would have helped you. I believe the point of Contact Person is important on the university campus. For me, if i had someone to help me navigate Financial Aid and housing and access those things on campus, i was very fortunate the nonprofit act supported me through the College Years so i had the Wraparound Services and supported me. When i was on campus to know how to navigate at the Higher Educational institute i needed more services not there. It was trying to find a niche how to advocate for myself and not feeling like people are pushing back against me while i asked for help. You worked while going to school . Yes. I asked how many work and go to school, they all raised their hands. I asked how many have one job . They looked at me. Two, three . Almost every one had three jobs they were doing. So i think we have to recognize the full scope of the costs of education. Thank you. Dr. Mcculllin, you talked about the back end of fafsa and additional hoops completing that form all important. I think its important our committee think about these issues in the context of simplification. Were focused reducing the number of questions. Its an important issue. Many proposals still rely on double and even triple checking a students income information from tax returns. What are the challenges for universities with verification for community College Students . We have to do circuit amounts of Fact Checking for the students, so much so oftentimes they will just say, forget it, i am done. But in terms of exactly what we end up doing we first have to contact the students for the verification process. We have to prepare the forms and make sure theyre accurately completing the forms and what is an acceptable documentation, with verification, update any difference this is a put in the fafsa form versus what were finding in the verification forms. Then, once the corrected data is returned to the processor and additional review needs to be made from that. Its a pretty big process, so much so that students are feeling it is a big barrier and takes a lot of their time. 25 of our time. Not just your work but their work coming back. What kind of wrap around services would be needed if we simplified the fafsa . Far less. Particularly if were prepopulating with irs data we have in the government. What would that mean, you didnt have to contact the student as often . It would be accurate data for those who filed a federal income tax form. If we could reduce the amount needed for verification we could put it in Student Services like what you are requesting, have a navigator on College Campuses to help the students find resources to afford college. You agree it is needed . Absolutely. I can come back in the second round. I will pick up on her questions, if i may, on verification, if im a student at one of your campuses, do i get my money or wait until its verified . My understanding is you have to wait until its verified. Yeah. Or youd be putting at risk having to return the money. You have students scrambling to go to college, all of a sudden, instead of having their bills paid when they enroll, they have to wait to october and on to find out. The propeoplposals weve be talking about basically says once you have given it to the government once that can be reported to the federal aid application. Would that greatly reduce the need for verification . Absolutely. What youre really doing is comparing the information you put on your federal aid form to the information you gave to the federal government earlier, right . Absolutely. That makes all the sense in the world, too. We do that here in the senate and that way we catch people. We require them to fill out the same information on three or four forms and they make a mistake and we accuse them of being a crook. Thats the difference with nomination process. Did you wanted to Say Something about verification . No, im good, thanks. Mr. Gregory you mentioned a simplified tax form would simplify the federal student aid process. If 90 of those who filled out their federal income taxes tint take any itemized deduction, would that create a simpler federal aid form . Yeah. Our proposal is that for the majority of pell grant recipients who dont have significant assets and dont have schedules attached to their tax form, we could get almost all the information from the front of the tax form. Without drawing you into the tax debate this week, the proposals move from 70 to 90 the number of americans who wouldnt itemize their deductions. I suppose that would simplify the process. Dr. Ruben, basically, youre suggesting, i believe others are, too, we separate out the pell grant and ask two or three questions. You identified what they were. That would be about 30 or 40 of the 20 million forms filled out now, right . I think thats right. If we had people figure out their pell grant earlier that might incentivize them to go through the rest of the process. Those three questions were what . It basically started with what is in the fast act. What is your Family Income . What is your family size . I would ask about what your Family Structure is. The first two youve already reported to the federal government, correct . And the third one would also be part of it. Basically, youre suggesting take three pieces of information that a taxpayers already reported to the federal government, move that out and make a decision about whether the pell grant whether youre eligible for a pell grant. And in what amount . A pell grant can be from 500 to 1500 something. I would being use a formula people dont have to see. It can be complicated. If i gave you the answer to those three questions you could figure it out . Yeah. Based on how you compared to the federal poverty line. Do you agree with that . I agree with most of that. What dont you agree with . The nice thing about using imported or verified or prepopulated data from the tax return, we can get more of a full picture of someones financial circumstance and strength without requiring additional effort on their part. If i know somebody has Real Estate Investments but their agi is zero because of losses theyve written off. You need that for a pell grant . Im talking about pell. For pell i wouldnt dispute it. For the 4,000 schools that award institutional aid, i would say they would want it. I did ask you what you didnt agree with. You would agree if its 30 or 40 we could identify those three questions or so. I think this is import those from the information we already have and make a decision about, a, whether youre eligible for a pell grant and back end the computation and say the amount of your pell grant is x, between 500 and 5800. If the federal policy discussion is to make this very easy for pell recipients, i think thats fine, yes. Thank you. Senator franken. Thank you, mr. Chairman, thank you for this hearing and thank you to all the witnesses for your testimony and thank you, senator bennet, for working on this for so long. I want to take a moment to agree with senator murray that i hope we have broader conversations about college affordability. In minnesota as in every one of our states, this is so important. In minnesota, students graduate with owing more than 30,000, and across the nation, 44 million americans are working hard to pay off their student debt. I was glad to hear the chairman agree heartily with the Ranking Members Opening Statement trying to Work Together with hearings like this, bipartisan hearings that you always have on the Higher Education act. Mr. Draeger, thank you for your testimony. The trade off between simplicity and accuracy is a great way of talking about this and understanding it. Your testimony, you mentioned we can rely more on technology after students submit the fafsa, to have both simplicity and accuracy. Dr. Mccullin, you say if we reduce the time spent on the verification processes we can redirect the resources to support more students. I think we all agree with that. Miss williams, i must say, you are an amazingly impressive person and thank you for the work youre doing. I guess my question for dr. Mccallin, if we do more work using this technology, would this help nontraditional students for example foster kids . It would definitely help nontraditional students, which are the vast majority we serve in Community Colleges. As senator murray discussed, many of our students work. 74 of our students actually have to work in order to be able to afford college. Simplification is important so they can access all the aid they have available to them. In diagnose addition to that we pell eligibility to distribute aid. We will adapt to whatever the new system is. That is something we have control over. If were able to understand the income thresholds or whether or not somebodys eligible for pell, well adapt to that. Its not something set in stone. For me, from my standpoint, the more simplistic the better in terms of helping access student aid. We need to simplify fafsa for students and their families and also help them better understand the Financial Aid award letters they receive from colleges after they submit their fafsa. Right now, these Financial Aid letters are very often confusing. Miss williams i want to ask you about that. They often dont delineate what is a grant versus what is a loan. Senator grassley and i have introduced the understanding of the true cost of college act, our bill would make sure students and their families get clear and uniform information so they can make applestoapples comparisons between what the different schools are offering them when it comes to Financial Aid. Miss williams how would a uniform Financial Aid letter make its easier for first generation College Students better understand the true cost of college . I would say that it would help one, i know from my experience, in particular, i think about if i understand what subsidized and unsubsidized loans were, maybe i could reconsider other grants and scholarships to help pay for college. Like you stated, it does not break down what are grants, what are loans, what are unsubsidized loans and what other grants you may request for. I believe if that is understood in the Financial Aid package, one, like you stated, you can make a decision what university you could go to based on how much dolltheyre able to give y based on your needs. That wasnt a situation until i got to vcu, more of a better understanding because i had been in the Higher Education institute for a year but i understand the Financial Aid letter. A lot of students dont. When they see unsubsidized loans they dont understand it has interest and will cost you more to pay back on the back end. Breaking it down where students can understand it would help with Higher Education and making it more affordable. Thank you. Thank you. Senator warren. I know were here to help more students access Financial Aid by simplifying fafsa. Im happy to work with you how to do it. I honestly dont understand how we can discuss fafsa simplification as Congressional Republicans as we speak are ramming through a giant tax give away to billionaires and corporations that would make college even more unaffordable to millions of americans. I appreciate the expertise every one of you have shared. I will submit written questions following this so ill get answers on the record for fafsas simplification. I want to focus whats actually happening in congress this week. Mr. Draeger, let me ask you, one provision in the republican tax bill that passed the house would eliminate the Tax Deduction for student Loan Interest payments. The cost to students who borrow money to go to college would be 21 billion. Would this tax change help or hurt students who borrow money to pay for college . The elimination of the above the line deduction would make loans more expensive and thereby college more expensive. Dr. Mccallin do you gray grow it would make it harder to go to college . Yes, it would make it harder to go to college. I would note our students are loan averse in general and 58 graduate with zero debt but for those who have debt it would make it more costly. Another provision would repeal tax on waivers that covered graduate school tuition. The cost of students who get tuition waivers under this tax bill would be 5. 4 billion. Dr. Ruben youre a senior policy at the urban institute. Would this tax change help or hurt graduate students. If were going beyond what were talking about today my views arent necessarily attributable to the Tax Policy Center. In the work weve done analyzing the house bill, the changes in making college and graduate school more expensive would hurt graduate students. In general between that and treating Employer Benefits as tuition is going to make it harder for people to attain the education and training they need. Mr. Draege, do you agree . Yes. As a general rule tax and benefits grounded in affordability are doubly punitive. Thank you. According to an analysis requested by Ranking Member patty murray from congresss nonpartisan joint committee on taxation, overall the republican tax bill that passed the house would cost College Students and estimated 71 billion over the next 10 years. The senate bill is projected to add more than a trillion to the National Debt which could lead to even more cuts in pell grants and to higher student loan costs down the road. Just to put that trillion number into perspective for everyone, we could totally forgive every penny of Student Loan Debt with the amount of money Congressional Republicans are using to slash the Corporate Tax rate and still have money left over. Every penny of Student Loan Debt. But the Congressional Republicans dont plan to use that money to cut Student Loan Debt or lower the cost of college. Nope. They propose to use the money to give gigantic tax give aways to rich people and big corporations. Im sorry. I do not understand how we can focus just on helping students access federal student aid while ignoring the republican plan to drive up the cost of college for millions of families, a plan that could come up for a vote this week. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator warren. Senator murray, do you have additional questions . Do i have some i will submit for the record. I want to make one point following senator warrens comments. I am deeply concerned as well about the impact on lowincome students of the policy you put forward. We already have income inequality and know low and middle income people earn wages and salaries and higher income people tend to build investments. These kinds of policies will have a greater impact on lower income students. Mr. Chairman its been a very productive discussion today and i think this is an important issue and hope we can work to broaden that within all the challenges of the Higher Education process and Work Together to have hearings that really help us focus on that. So thank you. Thanks, senator murray. Senator franken, you have other comments or questions . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Id like to associate myself with senator warrens remarks. This tax bill will hurt students in so many ways that senator warren underscored and while fafsa is very important way to help students get financing for college, the way this the giveaway to the wealthiest people in this country and to powerful corporations and the provisions that senator warren spoke about will have an enormous detrimental effect on students. I think that i would just like to associate myself with her remarks. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator franken. This has been very helpful. Thanks to all of you for coming and the staff, our committee staff, both democratic and republican staff will want to follow up with you and get your specific suggestions as we develop a bill as part of a larger package to reauthorize the Higher Education act. One thing ive noticed is sometimes we take our time, which sometimes people dont like, that just by bringing up a subject and provoking a discussion we can make some progress. I think back to that nashville meeting three or four years ago we made a lot of progress in terms of what we call the prior prior year change, which is u n unintelligible to most people but you can file your you dont have to file your you dont have to file your application before you pay your income tax, in other words. That was a common sense change and the Obama Administration just did that. And president obama endorsed our idea of simplifying fafsa and identified a number of areas that can be eliminated. We all have a better understanding what were doing. Were at a point i think we can come to result. Let me see if i can summarize a little bit. The suggestion has been made by several of you, dr. Rueben specifically, one approach would be to separate the pell grant, which would be 30 or 40 of the 20 million applications filled out every year. Thats a lot of applications, 7 or 8 million, ask three questions, all of which could be incorporated from the Internal Revenue Service People had reported. And let an applicant know, a, if youre eligible for a pell grant and, b, the amount. With that same sort of procedure, you could let a person know that before they are admitted to college, so they can use that money to shop around and you can let them know in the seventh, eighth and ninth grade and raise their sights a little higher, i might be able to afford this. The average pell grant is about the same amount as the average Community College tuition in the country. All this talk about extense of going to to college, there is an expense but important to know. Is that just dr. Ruebens view or do the rest of you believe it would be practical to separate out the pell grant. Mr. Draegor. With todays technology, im left with the question if we can get more verified data from the tax return the stool doesnt have to followup on, why not. If they want a separate document for pell eligibility, thats a fine suggestion. To get as much information on information we already have, i would lean. So once is enough. Thats exactly right. Once is enough. I think its a great idea and the challenge of asking for more is communication challenge, separating pell out simplifies that, i think its an excellent idea. Miss williams. I also think so, taking into consideration for Homeless Youth that may be unaccompanied that may be very challenging for them to give parental income to identify what their income bases are. Good point. Dr. Mccallum. I would agree but we still have the challenge of students who dont have to file a tax return. We need to give consideration to that. Let me go to all the other information. Mr. Craiger draeger made the point a lot of people give out aid other than the federal government and institutions and states like to have more information. What do we do about those applications . Thats twothirds or 40 of the applications, one suggestion has been that the department of education would gather that other information and make it available, basically import it from the information already give top the irs and make it available to states and institutions. If we were to separate out the pell grant award in the way we just described, what about all the other information states and institutions want . Dr. Reuben, lets start with you and go down the line. I still think theres a role for the federal government. I feel like using technology and tax returns we could get most of that information in. As my colleague mentioned, part of it is to simplify it for the lowest income students. Part of separating it would mean we could disentangle some cost restrictions on pell unaffecting the festivity family contribution and affordability for other families. I feel you can do a lot of this with technology and worth separating but i think there is a federal role for providing that information in the work fafsa has done, if you have a fairly simple form you can get much of the way through except a separate state specific sheet that would give all the foremost colleges and states need. Has your organization agreed on a way to do that . There are two pathways forward. You could build in buckets of supplemental questions on a state by state basis could be appended to whatever the federal form is. Right now there are about a dozen states that have separate federal forms. About 200 use the information application, the profile. Our goal is we dont go too far down the road having more states and more schools introduce a separate app. Theres a tightrope were walking. If we could bring more of the tax return information over that gets us there. The danger, it would put us back to pre1992. If its fragmented. Dr. Scottclayton. I think its totally doable and the Additional Information contained in the efc is valuable for state and institutional distribution. If it brings people on board i think its worthwhile. My leaning would be towards a more simplified system that maybe wouldnt have Something Like an efc. Continuity is important. Were not starting from scratch. I think thats a fair consideration. Miss williams. I agree with what they said. Dr. Mccallin. Im in agreement. The two things we use are efc and pell eligibility. To the extent we can get something that determines either of those i think we would adapt. The access is far more important than having 100 accurate data for that determination. I would assume without asking phasing in what we decide to do would be a wide step so states and institutions and organizations could adjust to it and minimize the chance of a mistake by us or somebody else. Senator warren, do you or senator franken have any other comments . Thanks again for a very helpful hearing. I look forward to working with senator murray and developing a schedule and issues she mentioned are issues we all care about. Our committee is off on other issues for the Higher Education act for years now. And i hope we can have round tables and markups and do something in the First Quarter of next year. Your participation today is a good beginning. I ask unanimous consent to submit a statement for their record from the National College access network. It will be included. The hearing record will remain open for 10 business days. Members may submit Additional Information and questions for the record any time they would like. The next hearing is tomorrow tuesday november 29th on the nomination of dr. Alex azhar to serve as secretary of health and human services. Thank you for being here today. The committee will stand adjourned. In the morning well bring you back to the Senate Health and Education Senate room on alex azar, tapped to head the health and human services. He served as a deputy secretary at hhs during the george w. Bush administration. Well bring you gavel to gavel coverage at 9 30 eastern live here on cspan3