Transcripts For CSPAN3 Hearing 20240702

Subcommittee on Higher Education. The subcommittee will come to order. The chair is authorized to call recess at any time. Welcome to todays hearing the subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to call recess at any time. Welcome to todays hearing, titled tran26 examining the impacts of students, families and schools. When it comes the time for students across america to apply for college, the free application for federal student aid, fafsa, is a critical tool. For many, fafsa is the only access to post secondary education. It opens doors and provides assistance to individuals seeking to pursue academic ambitions, regardless of background. In 2020, legislators and policymakers sought to make the process even more accessible by passing the fafsa simplification act. With the financial burden of college growing every year, it was incredibly important to reform the fafsa process for families. The new law streamlined the long application process, and in some cases, students could see the number of questions on the forms shrink from 18 to 18 from 103. As weve learned over the past three years, the Biden Administrations greatest success is its failure at everything it attempts to do. Today, the committee is poised for a familiar challenge oversight. Despite our efforts, the department of educations fafsa rollout was mired in delays and dysfunction. The department of education botched it threatens to damage students, families and institutions. First off, the fafsa implication has been a federal law since the Biden Administration on day one. That did not stop the department of education from pursuing for pushing, five months, the initial launch date to a soft launch in december of 2023. Five months. The department of education did rollout the new fafsa, and students were met with glitches, and a myriad of technical issues. Some students could not complete the form at all. For those who managed to complete the form, the transmission of key numbers to schools was slow. Without timely data, schools cannot forecast budgets or prepare Financial Aid packages. Compounding the issue, the department of education has made multiple data errors, rendering hundreds of thousands of records inaccurate and unusable for schools. Unfortunately, this may only be the tip of the iceberg. There may be a new and by the time this hearing is over. These failures do not just impact the taxpayer, who always pays the cost of bureaucratic dysfunction. An estimated 20 drop in enrollment this year. Lower income students that require access to aid are the hardest hit, and these delays do not even count for next years fafsa, which will almost, certainly, not be ready by october. This is unfathomable to me, that the office of federal student aid received over 2 billion last year. In essence, the american taxpayer has paid 2 billion to give their children a year or two of chaos and anxiety. Fafsa was created in 1992 with the hea reauthorization act. Weve had 30 years of a functioning system that serves hundreds of millions of students. Within three years, the Biden Administration and department of education has managed to bring the educational industry to a possible Game Changing crisis. What is the answer to this debacle . He is asking for an additional 625 million to add to the office of federal student aids budget. We are left to conclude that instead of doing the job it was tasked to do, which is helping over 18 million potential students apply for fafsa, this administration opted to waste months of time and energy on a reelection strategy. On an unconstitutional student loan forgiveness scheme. Students, schools and institutions deserve answers. It is our responsibility, as congress, to hold the executive branch accountable. I look forward to working together with members on this committee to learn from this botched rollout and to ensure the smooth, clear, and honest fafsa process moving forward. I yield to the Ranking Member for her opening statement. Thank you so much, chairman owens. And, thank you to the witnesses for coming today. We know that a College Degree is the surest pathway to economic mobility in america. Unfortunately, for many low income students, particularly, those at hbcus, such as Florida Memorial University in south florida where i live, the cost of a College Degree remains out of reach. Without federal student aid. For years, the pell grants have helped some of the students achieve the promise of Higher Education. This is why in 2020, democrats and republicans in Congress Passed the fafsa simplification act, which aimed to streamline the free application for federal student assistance forms and expand student aid eligibility, especially, for those who usually would not be able to afford to go to college. Sadly, the holdup with this law raised questions about whether going to college in the fall is even doable for those, who cant foot the bill. Students needed their Financial Aid information months ago. To make College Decisions, get, many still dont have that information today. I would like to remind everyone that College Decision day, which should be a joyous event, where students declare where they will go in the fall, is may 1st, less than a month away. And, we dont want children all dressed up on that day with no place to go. I even have a signing day in my district, where the boys and the 5000 role models of excellence, sign, just like athletes, but they are signing for academic scholarships. But, guess what . Many students wont even have what they need to make that choice. Additionally, this has made things more complicated for colleges and High School Counselors as well. They, just like students, have had to quickly adapt to the frequent changes from the department of education. These setbacks put decades of progress in jeopardy, slamming the brakes on efforts to widen access to Higher Education, and Financial Stability for students of color, first generation students, and those from low income backgrounds. According to the National College attainment network, only 32. 3 of students from low income high schools completed the fafsa form , a 32. 9 decrease from the previous year. And, only 32. 2 of students in high minority high schools have completed the form, but 33. 3 decreased from the previous year. The stark reality directly imposes the intended purpose of the simplification act, serving as a slap in the face to students wanting to be somebody at achieve the promise of Higher Education. While i agree that holding the department accountable and investigating its mishandling is crucial, our immediate priority, immediate priority, must be ensuring students and their families have the necessary resources to make informed decisions about their future. We must also ensure that schools and organizations are prepared to assist them. The clock is ticking, and students need answers now. I would like to request inclusion in the record, the tampa bay times, tuesday, may 9th, 2024, entitled, florida student aid request plunge. How many were delayed or even skipped college . No objection. Thank you. Pursuant to Committee Rules h. C. All who want to introduce written statements may do so thank you. Pursuant to community rules, all members that wish to submit written statement may do so to the Committee Clerk electronically in microsoft word format by 5 00 p. M. 14 days after the hearing which is april 24, 2024. Without objection, objection remain open 14 days to allow statements and materials referenced during the hearing to be submitted to the official hearing record. I would like to turn the time to introduce four distinguished witnesses. The first is president of cerebral institute, which is located, sorry about that, located in skokie, illinois. The next witness is the ceo of National Association of Student National aid administrators located in washington, d. C. The third witness is ms. Kim cook, ceo of College Attainment network located in washington, d. C. The final witness is rachel fieldsman, the vice provost for enrollment at university of North Carolina chapel hill located in chapel hill North Carolina, thank you so much. We thanked the witnesses for being here today and testimony pursuant to Committee Rules, limit or a presentation to five minute summary of your written statement. I would like to remind witnesses to be aware of their responsibility to provide Accurate Information to the subcommittee. I would like to start off with recognizing mr. Kantrowitz. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I thank you for convening on the hearing on fafsa fail examining the impact on students, families, and schools and for inviting me to testify before the u. S. House subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development this morning. My name is mark kantrowitz. In 1996, i developed a prototype of online soft for that led to the fact that ring made available on the web. Since then, i provided Public Comment on draft fafsa every year, i wrote a bestselling book about the fafsa and several consumer facing website about Financial Aid. My mission is to deliver practical information advising tools to students and family so they can make smarter, more informed decisions about paying for college. Im pleased to have the opportunity to share my insights with the committee today. The rollout of the 2024 25 fafsa plagued by delays, communication failures, frustrating and impossible process for students, families, colleges, scholarship providers. Numerous missed implementation deadlines, long delays, broken promises, clogged call centers, and i. T. Errors. There has been lack of transparency with the challenges and delays portrayed in overly optimistic fashion. The goal of fafsas implication was to make it easier for students and families to file the fafsa thereby eliminating it as a barrier to College Access and success by low and moderate income students, First Generation College student, underrepresented students and other atrisk students. The launch of the new form has been a disaster in this regard lets review how we got here. Congress passed the fafsas implication that on december 27, 2020 effective for the 2023 24 award year. When the u. S. Department of education said they could not implement the simplified fafsa schedule, Congress Passed technical correction act on march 15, 2022 to the late implementation until 2024 25. The contract for the simplified fafsa was not awarded until march 2022, 15 months after passage of the fafsa simplification act. U. S. Department of education did not launch fafsa until december 30, 2023 after three months of the usual october 1st start date. It was open for half an hour that day. Problems prevented many students and families from filing the new fafsa, 15 problems remain on unresolved. Students and families call the Information Center for help, they spent hours on hold, calls and email messages went unanswered. The u. S. Department of education did not initially implement inflationary adjustments with the fafsa Financial Aid formulas as required by the fafsa simplification act despite being told about the problem in may 2023. They did not decide to fix the problem until january 2024 after learning middle income students would lose an average of about 1600 in Financial Aid and high income students an average of 4600. On january 30, 2024, the day colleges were supposed to start receiving processed fafsa data, the u. S. Department of education announced another unprecedented six week delay. When fafsa processing began mid march of 2024, applicants were not able to make corrections yielding high error rates. There were also errors that affect about a quarter of all fafsa including errors in the calculus in a dependent student assets and tax data. Applicants have a few weeks to make the most momentous decision of their lives. There are 2. 8 million fewerfafsas filed this year compared to the same time last year, 15 drop overall. The drop in College Enrollment may have worsened during the pandemic causing some colleges to close. Several factors contributed to the fafsa fiasco. Rather than remove questions to simplify the fafsa, u. S. Department of education decided to change Everything Everywhere all at once , including overhaul of the antiquated fafsa processing infrastructure. At the same time, there was a restart of repayment for federal Student Loans, proposals for student loan forgiveness, and the new save income driven replacement plan. Inadequate testing of the new fafsa before launch. Testing was an afterthought, not part of the original development plan. More time, staffing, funding, and testing and better prioritization of existing staff and funding might have helped. Mr. Chairman, i once again thank you and the committee for taking interest in the development of the simplified fafsa and inviting me to share my thoughts on the matter. I would be happy to answer questions we have on this or other topics. Thank you, mr. Kantrowitz , appreciate it. The next witness. Thank you, mr. Chairman, chairman allen, Ranking Member wilson, other distinguished members of the committee. I represent 3000 college and University Career school Financial Aid offices and today look at their perspective. I want to take us back a couple months to january 30, 2024. That will live in the collective trauma of most Financial Aid officers across the country. That was the day schools were expecting to receive roughly 3 million fafsa files from the u. S. Department of education. To be clear, that to the students who completed the fafsa up to that point, anything but smooth sailing. They had gone through a form that was only available at certain times of the day and riddled with riches, to put it mildly. By january 30th, that was the day the department told schools they would start to receive fafsa files and schools were already months behind at that point. They need those files so they can start to put together Financial Aid packages, things like pell grants and supplemental grants and need based scholarships and state grants and workstudy so you can understand they were very anxious on this day to get started. At that point in the process, students have started sending out Early Admissions. Schools were in the coming weeks going to start sending out regular admissions to buy that point, students had already started receiving admissions decisions, what they did not know and still dont know today is how they are going to pay for it. You will understand that on january 30th, they were anxiously awaiting at their desks for the fafsa files, they were aghast when what they instead received was a notice from the department of education that fafsa files would be delayed another two months. January 30th wasnt the first day of bad news but it was the straw that broke the camels back and turned this rollout from a hardship into a crisis. January 30th communication, that communication unfortunately fits a pattern repeated throughout the launch and negatively impacting every school, every student, every family in your district to and what is that pattern . Lastminute communication from the department of education throwing schools and schools and families into chaos. It is drastic and farreaching policy decisions making everyone do 90 degree to times is not 180 degree directional changes. And it is bad news buried in celebratory publicity. That is usually stuff reserved for press releases, that is fine, i come from the world of pr and communications. Stuff that is usually in press releases has made its way into operational releases to this isnt just a petty list of grievances, this really adds up to a crisis of credibility for the department of education. That brings me to today, my written testimony lays out with painstaking detail where we are. I want to wrap up with two points, overhauling the fafsa was a big deal, it was a big operational lift. It was necessary and important that maybe the thing i want to highlight most of all, it was congressionally mandated bipartisanly. When Congress Gives any administration a legislative mandate, it should be the top priority of that administration. My second point is, we are in an awful place today. Schools have all the fafsa information they need from the department of education. But the department estimates 20 of the files that schools have are riddled with errors. Another 20 of the files on top of that, on average, dont have the numbers that the Financial Aid offices need to actually calculate any awards. That means 40 of the fafsa files schools have are not usable. To calculate Financial Aid office offers for students, that is on average, some schools are higher. Here is the hard truth, i dont take any pleasure being here to say this today, when you have a crisis of credibility, schools dont trust that more errors will not be found tomorrow, that the data that they have today is critical, or that guidance wont change tomorrow. Schools are stuck in paralysis and not because the department is purposefully misleading anyone, but because education itself may not know where the next errors are to be found. Im glad to report the department is reporting more frequently, doing more webinars, throwing more resources at this. As of last night, their communications are more direct. Im not here to say that all hope is lost, the form is better, i can say it because ive seen it work. I hope that we salvage this year, i look forward to the conversation that follows these testimonies and thank you for holding this hearing. Thank you, mr. Draeger. I will recognize ms. Cook. Chairman owens, Ranking Member wilson, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to speak this morning. Prioritizing fafsa support and completion because it aligns strongly with our vision, all students, especially first generation students, students from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds, those from lowincome backgrounds have an equitable opportunity to achieve social and economic mobility through Higher Education. Long advocated for fafsas implication and the coalition of cross sector Partner Organizations to champion it. Completion of the fafsa is one of the best predictors of whether High School Seniors and college. Seniors to complete the fafsa are 84 more likely to mediate enrolled in post secondary education. Are policy goals have been to simplify the form, improve early awareness, expand pell Grant Eligibility. Encouraging increases the post secondary in rum and completion, lowering errors in verification burden for applicants. 2019 future act in 2020 future fafsa simplification act brought a comprehensive reform widely talked about is a simplified fafsa. According to the department of education, 600,000 more students will become eligible for pell grants in 2025. We begin the school year with high hopes for this better fafsa. Instead, students and families and the advisers and counselors who support them have experienced fafsa technical malfunctions, botched i. D. Account creation system that has many students from mixed status families still unable to contribute parent information to the form of a call center with our long waits, dropped calls due to volume, and in correct information. And a painfully slow rampup of applicant Data Transfers to waiting Financial Aid offices who await reprocessing of up to 20 of applicants given formula errors. Open issues remain included no functionality upwards of 20 of students who need to make corrections, some resulting from known issues. An unknown number of paper forms still have no timeline for processing. No data has been shared yet on the status of renewal fafsa forms. The delayed opening and processing and reprocessing of applications means most High School Seniors have yet to receive an aid offer. They are asked to commit by may 1st, our greatest fear is they will decide they cant. Students have done all the right things, working hard for 12 years and navigating all the steps in their senior year of high school to continue the college that they have no idea how or if they can afford those next steps on their post secondary path to the data catastrophic decline in College Enrollment for the High School Class of 2024 unless something changes very quickly. 30 fewer fafsas through march 22nd on the same day last year, more submissions are needed from High School Seniors to match last years submission rates we hoped to exceed this year. Submission gaps are exacerbated in high schools serving large percentages of students from lowincome communities and schools with high minority enrollment. Ncan says we could reach the milestone from 100,000 to 700,000 fewer fafsa completions this year. These numbers must serve as Early Warning sign. The last time we saw such dramatically known numbers was during the height of the pandemic, notably crushing 6. 8 drop in immediate College Enrollment for the class of 2020 with significant decreases were black, latino, and native american students. Secondary enrollment still has not fully recovered. It is still possible to eject momentum into the cycle. Despite the challenges, tireless, fierce, Student Advocates and students and families they support, have rolled the proverbial rock up the hill. Despite persistent setbacks, they remain emitted to our students and a promise of a better fafsa. We applaud and appreciate states who adopted universal fafsa completion, we are grateful to the state aid programs and institutions that delayed enrollment dates and held back aid for those impacted by reprocessing. Ncan joined the effort by quickly standing up and raising additional 1. 3 million in private commitments for Digital Media fafsa completion campaign. Education department fafsa support strategy gives needed help to under resourced institutions, many of them and roller students. We urge divided menstruation to allow flexible use of those funds for communitybased organizations, School Districts, and state agencies to continue to work. We also appreciate next weeks fafsa week of action where the department is raising awareness and holding completion events. We remain committed to working with you for students. The equity stakes here are monumental, as is the potential impact on postsecondary enrollment. I would be happy to answer questions here or individual followup. Thank you again for this opportunity. Thank you, appreciate that. Thank you, mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you, im rachel feldman, vice provost of aroma at the university of North Carolina at chapel hill and also a member of the fafsas implication working group. That is a mouthful. The Oldest Public University with mission to educate the leaders of tomorrow from every corner of our state and beyond. We are proud to be both need blind admissions and meet the financial need of every undergraduate. We provide excellent education at affordable price for all. To do that, we relied not only on the generosity of our state and donors, especially on federal student aid and we cannot fulfill that promise without a working fafsa. In september 2020, with great optimism, i testified before the Senate Committee in favor fafsa simplification and excited about possibilities for the future. Unfortunately, the rollout of better fafsa has been disappointing. My colleagues and i feel discouraged, frustrated, most of all, worried about the impact this will have on students ability to attend college and achieve economic and social mobility. Today, i will focus on what it is like on the ground. My colleagues have talked about how rocky the fafsa launch was when it came three months late. Meanwhile, we at schools were not receding any data from the submitted forms and struggle to help families and students complete. The peer advisers with her advising corps to try to use usual fafsa completion events for families and students in under resourced high schools were frustrated and often stymied by federal systems that were down or just not functioning as expected to today, six months behind our regular schedule, received only 60 of the records we normally would this time of year. The files were received friday from the department telling us how many files needed reprocessing constituted 48 of the records we can match. Another 20 are rejected because of lack of signature or other known issues. We feel like were flying blind without a clear path and have yet to release single official aid offer despite having released our admissions decisions. Policy changes are also causing whiplash, more than once, the departments issued guidance reversed in days. We have done, undone, redone work more times this year than i can count. Financial aid professionals in schools feel like the red keeps getting dinged out from under them. If they feel like that, imagine how are first generation families and students feel. Also frustrating is how tone deaf some of the communications from the department have been. On march 15th, when the schools received at most a handful of records, secretary cardona wrote a letter to School President s that impart implied, schools were the ones not ready and responsible for the delays in aid offers. At that exact time, colleagues were reporting over three hours of the department to get help on phone calls or put on a priority callback list only to wait weeks for response. Electronic announcements we were receiving we relied on for guidance read more like press releases as one of my colleagues said, enough with the sunshine and rainbows. Higher education is too important to be of political football. I know that each of you are here serving on this committee because you care about our students, their families, and the future. You dont want double tuck or sales pitches any more than we do, what we all need is Straight Talk and Timely Solutions that get students money to go to college. The continuing delays hurt our most vulnerable students and families the most, millions of students rely on the support they receive from Guidance Counselors or outreach programs in order to not just complete the fafsa that make crucial College Decisions. As time marches on, though students will graduate and not have those resources. We cannot leave behind talented minds simply because they rely on Financial Aid to go to college. We in the field are exhausted, we know there are many dedicated career staff at ed. Working long hard hours trying to fix the issues and they are frustrated, exhausted, frankly probably embarrassed at this point to we are already worrying about next year, will there be more delays, will believe more young people behind the light be able to enroll students that are so key to my mission . We are facing a crisis of enrollment and trust. I will conclude this testimony as i did in 2020 with hope, once we solve the problems with the fafsa, i think were in for better world and Financial Aid being a lifeline for millions of students, we have to make this work area schools in the outreach communities stand ready to do all we can to make things better and help students. We appreciate your help making sure everyone can benefit from the promise of fafsa simplification. Thank you for your attention and im happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you so much, ms. Feldman. Appreciate that. Committee roe night will question witnesses with a five minute rule, i will begin the process. The department of fafsa delays and errors are not victimless crimes. At the and of the day, students, families, states, and institutions are anxious and frustrated because the department has failed to do the job. Mr. Draeger, in your testimony, you give several examples of fafsa sweeping fafsa problems under the rug. Why did they continue to downplay the problems of fafsa over the past three years even though advocate groups and experts were sounding the alarm . By the way, this started, i read your comments, in 2021. It is now 2024, we have been sounding the alarm for quite a while, what would be the reason for that response . I wish i knew the answers to some of the reasons why the department swept or felt like they could not be forthcoming about some of the fafsa issues. We stood did start raising them early after the early deadlines were missed. Some did not feel like the biggest deal of the time because they missed a few deadlines are not coming out with road maps that we expected them to come out with. I think, mr. Owens, that is completely appropriate question for this committee to be asking of the department of education and its oversight function. And not really free of political points, to understand so we dont repeat the mistakes into the future, it is not critical. I can tell you some of the ramifications, which is loss of confidence by institutional Financial Aid offices. They dont trust, necessarily, that the data they have is completely accurate, that there wont be more data issues in the future. Paralysis, we did a poll over the last few days, we have a good number of institutions who are unsure whether they will be able to go out and send aid offers before may 1, the traditional date by which schools ask students to decide where they will be attending. A lot of schools have pushed that date back by now. Confusion in the aid office that leads to confusion among students and families. And fear of wrongdoing by auditors and Program Reviews that with all of this rapid change in policy guidance, that schools will be left on the hook trying to backtrack and explain to accreditors, program reviewers, and auditors. This ultimately led to the crisis of credibility with the department at. Mr. Kantrowitz, would you like to add to that purpose or results of this crazy rollout we have had . The overly sunny responses by the department were really acknowledging the problems that they were experiencing. They were having, it was as though this was to spin a disaster as though it was something successful. Like rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. It was inconceivable why they wouldnt come out and just say the truth, that things were problematic. Even yesterday, they issued an electronic announcement where the 20 of fafsas that need to be reprocessed because of transfer errors, they say they will start reprocessing them by may 1st, when they will start, not finish and by may 1st probably means that they will issue it on may 1st or maybe the day before. This may First National candidates reply day or decision day, it cannot possibly be may 1st. Given it takes colleges at least two weeks to generate Financial Aid officer, it means may 15th is out as well. I have been recommending the colleges they delay until june 1st. I worry that, will we have the fafsa completed, updated by the fall . Thank you. Ms. Feldman, what kind of things are hurt most by the mismanagement of the department and who stands to lose the most on this process . Clearly, students who really need to know whether they can afford school or not, so the lowest income students are hurt the most. And those not accepted to the various tiny number of elite universities that have enough money to make authors without federal aid. I worry most, honestly, about a student in rural North Carolina who has heard all of their life that colleges out of the reach, they worked hard for 12 years but all the voices around them say they cant afford it and we cant get them the document that proves they cant and we lose out on that talent. Thank you. Thank you so much, i would like to recognize chair paul. Post secondary education helps millions of students reach economic success and millions complete the fafsa annually to make it possible to pursue Higher Education whether it is college or trade schools to these are unacceptable issues that we have seen with the redesign and rollout of processing fafsa this year which made it very difficult for students to know whether the can afford school, similarly, colleges have not been able to communicate how much students award packages are, making it harder for students to choose where to go. These issues exacerbate a trend that i see in my home state of washington were too many students who may be eligible for Financial Aid are not even submitting there for their fafsa in my state is ranked 47 out of 54 completions. Ms. Ctte, the department of education must continue to mitigate fafsa delays as we have been talking about. At the same time, i believe Congress Needs to examine the barriers that prevent eligible families from receiving student aid. 38 of lowincome students receive the pell grant, which suggests some eligible students dont finish their fafsa. Clearly, this moment with fafsa is unlike previous years. What issues have families raised in the past that indicate why they skip applying altogether . Thank you for the question. If you could pull that closer to you. What brought us here today are many of the issues that you ask about with fafsa. It was a burdensome form, too complicated, asked many questions many families had already answered through irs tax data, used confusing terms that are not every terms such as i. R. A. Pension rollovers, not unfamiliar to students and really prevented a burden and barrier to many students as you point out. On top of that, many Students Experienced a back end audit like process called verification asking students to verify the information they submitted all of those things brought us to the simplified fafsa, the better fafsa in hopes things like the irs Data Transfer allows students to cleanly move over their information they have already provided to the irs and taxes for use in income and that is verified data that would be questioned again on the back end. I hope we are needing a lot of those challenges we identified in this new format. Yes, we heard excessive requirements block eligible students by making the process altogether too complex to receive aid and failing to resolve these issues has real consequences as the witnesses have laid out including students choosing to scope skip post secondary education or those that take on more student debt when they dont need to. Im proud of my state taking steps to automatically enroll students in tuition free opportunities by using students eligibility for public assistance programs like s. N. A. P. , my estate was and have students realize they can attend College Tuition free as early as the 10th grade, it is lifechanging. What do programs like s. N. A. P. Or wickr have in common that could help eligible students or families get student aid without complex application . Thank you for elevating the issues of Food Insecurity which continue to challenge many students accessing college, in particular in completing college. Washington was wise to coordinate benefit eligibility to help students gather all of the resources they need to support them in their Higher Education. I would also point out state aid agencies and institutions of Higher Education now have the ability to reach out to students using fafsa data to flag potential eligibility so they can coordinate all of these benefits. The fafsa delays continued to demonstrate the impact on peoples lives when federal programs are too complex for the average person to navigate to Washington State automatic eligibility is innovative way to work around this and i believe the federal government should continue making it easy for eligible students to receive aid. What you think, ms. Cook, we should do to promote early eligibility awareness and minimize barriers to help students receive the assistance they are eligible for . Early awareness is key to helping students continue the aspirations many elementary and middle school and high school, i think eligibility around federal student aid is key. We are excited to share that there is a pal lookup table that allows us to talk to a student in the early years and really demonstrate what the current availability is for aid so students see this as possible and know funding is there to support post secondary. Thank you so much, i yield back. Thank you, i would like to recognize my friend from pennsylvania, mr. Thompson. Mr. Chairman, thank you. This time of year is typically celebratory for High School Seniors and other students across the country as they gain acceptance letters to postsecondary programs and look ahead with excitement to their future education and pathway to careers. Unfortunately, this year, the Biden Administration injected anxiety, frustration and uncertainty into the process for millions of families across this great nation. While i remain deeply disappointed in the department of education and consistent failure to prepare for what was supposed to be a simplified fafsa process, we must prevent these issues from happening again and ensure students enrolling in the upcoming Academic Year have the necessary resources. Mr. Draeger, we heard about the issues about students being able to fill out for complete fafsa due to the department failure, one thing that struck me in your written testimony, we have not heard much about the actual errors in the system producing leading to things like incorrect pell grant awards. As you pointed out, 20 of students that have somehow been able to fill out the fafsa , have had their applications rejected due to errors that the Department Says it cannot solve. This is in addition to the 20 of applications the department has admitted were processed incorrectly. Can you share more about the root cause of these errors and what is causing them and what the department could have done to prevent them . Just to be clear, these are averages so you will see different numbers of different schools, some of the numbers might be higher at individual schools. 20 of the errors are pulling over wrong Data Elements from the irs so those are applications that will have to be reprocessed. Those reprocessing will be on different timelines. Institutions are doing a bunch of Different Things here, some of them are getting aid offers out, only on the applications that they know are correct, some schools are waiting for the reprocessing, some schools are Still Deciding what it they are going to do. That depends on every institution, what ultimately means are delays for students. On top of that 20 are additional 20 where the form, the applicant data going to the school is not generating enough information for them to do anything. They dont have the numbers to calculate a Financial Aid offer. That is called a rejected icer and it might be because the student did not sign the application or the parent did not sign the application, they did not sign an authorization to bring over irs data. It might be because they incorrectly signaled they only wanted loans. There might be a host of reasons. Thstances, the student or the parent needs to go in and make a correction. The functionality to make corrections has not been brought online. Normally, that functionality exists out of the gate but neither student nor institution can go in and make a correction as of this morning. Those 40 are basically, as of today, at least, dead in the water until the Department Takes further action. Thank you for that, you answered my followup question. The frustration taxpayers are having with the irs could be a contributing factor, the inefficiency of that agency in order to process those tax returns. A lot of frustrations we are hearing from taxpayers right now in addition to students and parents. As chairman of the house committee, i have to express profound concern for farm families across the country not able to access proper aid as a result of fafsas formula, the fact it counts their assets against them, these are not liquid assets. I dont know what part of the farm they expect them to sell and still be in farming at the end of the day. Farming is asset rich cash poor industry for these families do not have their assets, necessary to do their jobs and feed our nation, counted against them when determining eligibility for federal Financial Aid. I think at this point, mr. , ms. Feldman, you and your colleagues , have you encountered students whose aids was limited or eliminated because of this new policy . Thank you. Unfortunately, because of the lack of data or that errors in the fafsa this year, we have not been able to do any analysis yet to see how the formula changes impact our families. My time is about to expire, i want to say thank you. I was on my road to my masters degree was semester hours from the university of North Carolina chapel hill. Grade education and great pig pens down there as well so thank you very much, i yield. Recognize Ranking Member ms. Wilson. Thank you. Despite efforts to simplify the fafsa process , low income firstgeneration students and families are still facing challenges. This raises concern about equitable access to federal Financial Aid. Ms. Cook, based on fafsa tracker, what do fafsa submission rates look like in historically low income communities right now . Thank you, as i mentioned, 30 fewer fafsas submitted by High School Seniors compared to last year. However, those embers are exacerbated in low income communities that lag seven Percentage Points behind their peers and schools with high minority and romans that lag six Percentage Points behind and already behind 30 . Can you share some of the specific challenges faced by lowincome and firstgeneration students in completing the form . How do these challenges impact their access to federal Financial Aid . Many students are challenged by lack of knowledge about federal student aid. The idea the federal government will provide resources such as pell grants and subsidized loans, we work very hard to spread awareness about those. The second piece is around supports, many under resourced schools dont have Proper High School counselor ratios to support students or the ability to call on immunity based partners to do that. There are awareness and support issues for sure, previously the complexity of the form and the ability to collect all of the information to complete it certainly presented a challenge that we hope this year will turn the tide on. Okay, im very concerned about the potential longterm impacts of the issue on College Enrollment, particularly for low income students and students of color. I have heard many stories where Students Experience issues with the form lost confidence in the Financial Aid process and im worried instead of seeking help, these students will instead opt out of college entirely. Are you concerned about enrollment trends as a result of the delays in fafsa . We absently share your concerns, we heard from any students that they have admission offers but no aid offers to have the opportunity to afford and pay for college. How do we address the psychological response to the issue and say to the students they belong in the Higher Education system, what can we do . Absolutely. The first thing we need to do is get the system back on track and get that aid offers flowing back to students so they have the information to make decisions and to indicate to students there are ways to afford college including pell grants and subsidized loans and state institutional aid. The second is all of the people, the village of people come to School Counselors, access advisers, Financial Aid personnel, admission personnel that continued a message to students that they belong and we can make this happen. Im extremely concerned but i do have confidence that things will get better. Anytime something is new, anytime you roll out something new, with the department of education, i am sure they are working on these and next year it will be different. Im extremely concerned about class of 2024. Thank you, i yield back. Thank you. My first question for mr. Draeger, we obviously are dealing with a mess today, thanks for coming over here. Do you feel like the department has owned its mistakes or taken responsibility . Do you believe any employees of the department of education, political or otherwise, should lose their jobs because of the botched rollout . The department has certainly acknowledged these have been difficult and challenging times. But i have yet to hear any sort of apologies from the department of education and not even to schools, but to students and families. And i admit, maybe i have missed them. We are months, six months late from where the fafsa should have been released to students and families. There are a lot of glitches and challenges and entire swaths of students not able to complete it. We have not seen that, i think this committee, bipartisanly, has the responsibility to explore whether there should be ramifications felt as it relates to those sorts of questions. I would add two points to this, if there was a Financial Aid director or College President that delayed Financial Aid on their campus for up to six months, the professional price that would be paid for that would be pretty steep. The second point i would raise is that federal student aid is one of only three performance based organizations within the federal government. It operates very uniquely in the federal government. That means it is given certain flexibilities that dont exist elsewhere within federal agencies in terms of hiring, hr practices, and contracting. With those flexibilities should come additional accountability that congress should hold them to account for. It is okay for the committee, submit nasas recommendations on pbo accountability and reform. Okay, we will switch to ms. Feldman, when would your university normally send out aid officers, and because of delays, when will the authors be sent out this year . Normally, we attempt to send out aid offers with offers of admission, that would be toward the end of january for Early Admission applicants and toward the end of march for regular. We have yet to be able to send out a single aid offer because of the poor quality of the data and late receipt of the eyesores. We are hopeful we found some workarounds because we are one of those schools but also collect the css profile form that will allow us to produce aid offers in a couple weeks. Without that, im not sure i would have an answer for you today. You have no idea when it will be coming this year . Im hoping by the first week of may we will have something. But im hoping. I have been contacted by professionals in wisconsin, we have a lot of colleges like everybody else, losing faith in the apartment, what you think the department have education has to do to restore trust with the colleges and Financial Aid offices . I understand the lack of faith when information and guidance keeps changing just when we think we are going to get information, there is another delay. I think what we really need from the department is for them to own the problems that they have, which they started doing, and tell us straight, what is going to work, what is not going to work . Anything about next year that we should know now, it is sort of hard to believe we will all be solved and on time for next year, start planning for that right now and be good partners trying to help each other solve problems. I will give you guys one more question and you can answer it for me, i listened to my Financial Aid offices, to my surprise, they viewed loans as a carrot to get more people in the school. It is clear, they felt he could take it alone at this size, think how much fun you would have. Do you think it would add anywhere when you get around and doing what you can to make sure does not get out among your universities . Speaking on the Financial Aid offices we represent, to the contrary, what we hear from aid directors, they would like the authority to limit lending in certain circumstances for swaths of students, something we would love to work with you on, mr. Grothman. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you to the chair and Ranking Member, thank you to the witnesses, i have been on the committee more than a dozen years and i recall over the years all the conversations we had about fafsa simplification. I dont recall at the time having conversations about the Technology Part of that and what a massive change and i think it was mr. Kantrowitz mentioned cobalt, i dont recall conversations on how to redo that technologically and i worked a long time having the department of education work with treasury to automatically update Income Payments for income driven repayment plans, kept inking, why is it taking so long, why so complicated . It is something that should be easier than it looks, i think at first glance to the bipartisan simplification act was necessary, overdue, i think agreement on that point to help students and families better access Financial Aid and affordable Higher Education, someone who put myself through community college, college, law school, long time since i filled out fafsa form but i know it needed to be updated. We sit here today, i dont know, question that mistakes were made and communication has lagged, theres no question about that. Im especially concerned about underserved communities such as students from mixed status families, students eligibility for treo or gear up programs, they face additional burdens completing and submitting applications, i know somebody brought up the lack of assistance from High School Counselors already overburdened with all the other issues they are dealing with. What happens when school is over and students dont have access to the counselors anymore. I still have some hope this application cycle, of course we are going through the challenges now, and hope we get them solved and thank you for the solutions we put out today and i hope we move to a Better Future for students who are seeking federal aid for post secondary education with the understanding that the intent of the simplification bill was just that, to simplify, not make more complicated fafsa. Ms. Cook , in february, the department of education announced Fafsa College Support Strategy designed to provide Additional Resources to colleges as they go through this process. How does the College Support Strategy working . Is it supporting colleges and universities through the process . How can the department into to build on these efforts in the coming months . Not just to support colleges and universities but also students and families. Thank you for the question. Excited to hear about the College Support Strategy and help support the institution many are under resourced and many of which enroll our students. Our hope was that those supports would help the schools process icers so the students could receive that allimportant aid offer, that message they could attend college this year. Many reporters asked me, how do students choose between colleges . I said that the real question for many students, particularly from loan, background, if they can afford college, not where. We hope the funds are able to support schools that ultimately support our students. Question to how we build on that, it is increasingly clear we will need extended time with the students, particular High School Seniors in the class of 2024 and need to continue supports through the summer. My testimony advocated for expanding the strategy to support community organizations, state aid agencies, continued support students past high school graduation. You mentioned in your testimony, the fafsa fast tracker, this is showing submission rates for current High School Seniors and comparing them to historic trends. As of the end of march, 35 of high School Students submitted fafsa form, more than 27 decrease. How does that fafsa tracker help states and schools and other stakeholders have completion . What can we glean from the completion levels in the data concerns use and others at the dais . The tracker, we hope and often say data is a flashlight so we hope it will help district er superintendents, High School Principals and School Counselors and access advisers, to understand where the outreach is needed the most and how we target that to students to encourage fafsa completion. I hope everyone listening understands we should be working together, it is about the students and getting them the answers they need and that is what our focus should be. I yield back. Thank you. I would like to recognize the gentleman from indiana. Mr. Draeger , ms. Feldman, axios in indiana says that indiana has seen 20 drop in fafsa submissions, that could mean 20 fewer hoosiers getting Financial Aid, what is the best way to congress to hold the biden a ministration accountable for putting people in my state in a situation like that . It really seems egregious. The responsibility does rest with congress. As i pointed out, fsa is one of three performancebased organizations so it does have additional flexibility that i think this body, bipartisanly should be looking at, including hr hiring practices and contracting and off to a good start. You asked the Government Accountability office to begin a full investigation on what has gone on with the fafsa and i think once that report comes in, it would be good if several of the questions we started here were asked directly from the department of education. I would agree with my colleague. Again, i want to reiterate, we know there are career staff at the department of ed for the same and glory. There are people there working hard every single day. When something goes wrong, it is the leadership you look to for accountability and you can do that through the hearing processes. There never seems to be accountability though. I wonder, does it appear to either one of you that the administration is embarrassed by this . It affects so many people. I think we have definitely seen an uptick in the administration and putting more resources to this the last several months, even the last 24 hours since the hearing was announced. Many things i put in my written testimony about the issues that up plagued the fafsa rollout from the Financial Aid office perspective, we have seen some changes the last couple months and last 24 hours. They have thrown more resources at it, showing up at conferences, having more webinars, communicating more frequently. Thankfully, at least, we will see if it sticks, the last 24 hours, more direct in operational guidance instead of pumping it up with more fluff and pr. I guess what i would say, a lot of that feels like trying to close the barn doors after the horses have left the stable. I think it is going to take additional oversight from bipartisanly, this committee, to make sure we have the stick toitiveness to make sure that we see it through if we are going to salvage this year. Mr. Kantrowitz , a new story this week out by the biden imitation trying to make and run around the Supreme Court to erase Student Loan Debt. Is there a connection here . Is there connection between the botched rollout and erasing Student Loan Debt . I think it has been perhaps a distraction whereas, the primary purpose of federal student aid is the student Financial Aid and the fafsa. Those are the breadandbutter issues. And where they have been focusing on trying to bypass the Supreme Court ruling through the regulatory process and i dont know how many of the staff overlap, but it certainly means they cant have all hands on deck focusing on the fafsa when some of them are focused on other aspects of the federal student aid responsibility. You think it is more of a distraction means botching an important rollout of fafsa forms when they should have focused on that fafsa forms to begin with . It is an interesting point. For example, congress offered to increase funding if they didnt pursue student loan forgiveness and they turned that down. At least in that regard, they did not get the funding they needed because they were focused on the student loan forgiveness piece. Obviously, erasing Student Loan Debt is a political move, leading into election, youre suggesting the focus paid there might have very much, that focus and those resources should have been focused on doing their job to begin with, rolling out fafsa forms and helping people like me that relied on student aid to actually be the first in my family to go to college. Shame on them for the lack of focus and the mistakes that they made, i yield back. I would like to recognize the lady from georgia. Thank you, ranking chair owens and other members, and thank you for being with us today, i have read your testimony. It is obvious the launch of this years fafsa has not gone as intended and it is vital we do everything in our power to support and provide the flex ability so vitally necessary for our institutions and students to be shielded from negative impact this may have had on their daily lives and also operations. The stakes could not be higher for many of our college aged young people across the country, i just spent some time with some early on this Morning College students, one of the sorority groups i was with. As may quickly approaches, so does College Decision day. Federal Financial Aid is a vital part, not viral but vital part of College Affordability for many families. It is heartbreaking reality that some of our students may forgo college this year due to the lack of information about Financial Resources from the delay with the new fafsa program. Since the launch of this years delayed fafsa form, institutions expressed concerns with their ability to comply with several title for reporting requirements while simultaneously reporting student enrollment and processing Financial Aid in a timely manner. In response to these concerns, the department of education has taken several steps to reduce the burden on Financial Aid offices and institutions in general. For example, instead of having to provide all required reporting by july 31st of this year, institutions will be able to start reporting financial value transparency and gain will gainful Employment Data with the new system starting in july but will now have until october 1 to submit, giving them additional two months. I appreciate the steps that have been taken by the department to provide relief to the Financial Aid teams tasked with providing this information as well as processing Financial Aid. However, one of the many things that has been unfortunately damaged by this implementation has been the level of trust that exists between institutions and the Department Area i know we can and must make concerted effort to rebuild that trust and to ensure that every student receives their Financial Aid as quickly as they possibly can and i know we are working to make sure nothing like this happens again. The plan to collect Financial Data transparency and gainful Employment Data through a new system sounds similar to what institutions were being told in regard to this years fafsa. I know they are truly concerned about the departments ability to receive do this as quickly as he possibly can. And return to the strong level of trust that this department has really been known for. My question is, mr. Gregor, can you please provide context for why these reporting requirements, pose unique challenges for institutions this year . And how flexibility will help institutions focus on enrollment and the Financial Aid process . Thanks, very much. I want to thank you for raising this issue. These requirements will shed a light on Outcomes Data at institutions in an entirely new way. It also requires an enormous list that every institution coming up with the data requirements that will require the shed light on the program by Program Level outcomes for students. For the schools, primarily through the Financial Aid offices, right now there are six months behind and are asking to do six months of work in six weeks. While we appreciate the delay from the department, they only offered a two month delay. What we are really seeking from the department, something a little more commensurate with the delay in the fafsa. If you talk to any institution in your district or any district, we are asking for a little more of a delay that is commensurate with the delay in the fafsa processing. At the end, we will have something that is valuable for students. We need a little more time and it will hit hardest the under resourced schools that are service for the largest numbers under resourced students. The students who are most dependent on federal student aid. Thank you so much. Im out of time. I recognize mr. Williams. Thank you mr. Chairman. We sat here many months ago with representatives of the department of education, asking specifically about the fafsa rollout, about the delays. And about the confidence that they would meet the deadlines that clearly none of them met. Even the oversight of Congress Seems to have no effect on the actual performance of the department of education. I find that pretty shocking. Listening to your testimony, there are so many different areas where this seems to have failed. Functionality, the timing, transparency with the department of education and the communication and the accuracy of the processing of the actual results. I would like to ask each one of you what grade you would give the department of education and the rollout of simplified fafsa . I would give them an f. F. C. They didnt turn in their homework and you still give them a c . Really . I believe they did in some cases. 40 , theres an enormous number of disadvantaged families that would disagree with you today. Tonight. As they worry about their childs education future. I will give them a d. Disappointing. That is a fine line there. It is clear that we identified who has been harmed. All of you correctly identified it as the lowest income, the most vulnerable in society, that need and rely on the promise of education to be able to move forward in their lives. They are the ones in the dark, literally, with the decisions about their future. I would like to skip ahead to what is the consequence and remedy . I will ask another question could each one of you tell me if you believe the system will work flawlessly to simplified fafsa in october . Later this year. What is your confidence . High, medium, low . Medium. Less than six months before october 1st start date. Im not certain they might have to delay that start date . Mr. Gregor . If youre asking me whether the fafsa will be working in october and schools will get the information in october low. Medium. Ms. Feldman . I would say, low. I have no confidence we will have any record at the beginning of october. I come out of the tech industry. Rolling out of business process automation or enterprise scale type of application, hosted application, thats what this is, a lot of back in coordination with the irs or other departments, what other the apis are that youre making calls from, it is not a trivial task to roll this out. This rollout has been disastrous this. Frankly, inexcusable. Ive heard some of my colleagues today say that we will make sure nothing like this happens again. I just laugh out loud. Our government makes these kinds of promises to deliver these kinds of solutions, we give them billions to do this and they fail again and again. There is no accountability. They ignore congress. They ignore the will of the people. 10. 8 million families need to shout out their grievance against the department of education and their failure to deliver on the promise of the Financial Aid. As my colleagues pointed out, kids spend 12 years. Parents spend years planning and dreaming. To prepare for the opportunity. Part of which, particularly high cost of Higher Education. Is predicated on exactly these kinds of programs. Our government fails to deliver over and over and over again. There most certainly will be accountability. For the last few seconds, any suggestions on who we need to have in front of this committee and questions we need to ask . You have to have the operational staff, the cheap s chief operating officer. Last comments . Thank you. I yelled back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for joining us today. I cant tell you how many text i have received, which i know everyone on this panel has from friends and constituents screaming at how difficult it is for them to make a decision. As i plan to go to graduations in may, to give commencement addresses, to celebrate, people do not know what they are doing. They cannot make those decisions. What is really sad, this is for those who most need it. Fafsa is for those who need Financial Aid the is exactly what college is the was to be about. Which is about upward mobility. About closing the racial gap. This disaster of what happened with fafsa is hurting the communities that i care deeply about. We know that delays are causing a drop in enrollment in new mexico. Applications from High School Seniors are down by 28 compared to last year. New mexico we rolled out an opportunity scholarship. We will have the tuition paid of pell grants and the other scholarships and things that, because college is not just about tuition. The rural districts, 40 . 40 . A decrease. Right now we need to be in the solution game. We know its a problem. I dont want to be in the blame game, i want to be in the solution game. We need those applications back up. What are your recommendations for how we can best support students and the families at this time . To help them successfully navigate the fafsa delays . And are there Effective Community outreach resources that we can share with our constituents . Thank you for sounding the alarm on the urgency of the situation. It is quite urgent. We have limited precious weeks left. I appreciate your orientation and im happy to share some of those. This is a oneonone experience to complete a fafsa in many cases for the first recommendation solution is to support School Districts and communitybased organizations in getting as much time as they can with students as soon as possible. To help them complete the fafsa while having access during the high school year. The second, many states including new mexico, we need to increase and extend those beyond the typical time of march. Beyond the high school graduation. I mentioned earlier that summer supports will be necessary given the delays. We have a delayed opening but we have a finish line that were needs fixed when the semester begins for most students. We need to use all of the time we have available and make new time that we have not traditionally made to support students with completions. Again, the idea of using the College Strategy funds to support districts, to support funding for summer, is important. Encouraging those institutions in your district have flexibility on deadlines for students who are still awaiting offers and a siding. Another issue im concerned about and i wrote a letter to the secretary of education in february about the problem that fafsa was having with parents who have mixed immigration status we wanted to see that fixed. The department of education responded that they fixed this last month. We know challenges still persist for families. Could you share experience you have heard from mixed immigration status families about the ongoing challenges and completing fafsa . How are you addressing these concerns . Immigrants contributed Economic Vitality to the u. S. Economy. We need to make sure that we are able to honor those contributions by ensuring that children who are eligible, to make sure they are able to access the Education Resources that they deserve. Thank you for that. The ability of eligible dependent students who have parents with all Social Security numbers, to use the fafsa forms was one of the top promising new pieces coming with the fafsa this year. It also has been the top frustration communicated by our members who serve many who are eligible dependent students. Having parents without a Social Security number. I see that my time has expired. We would love to have your submissions in writing. These are things that people care about in my District Across the country. Thank you very much. I yield. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Gregor, is there any evidence that fafsa implementation or successful and the mentation has been a priority for the Biden Administration . When the Biden Administration came in, they met with us about the priorities. We flagged fast for about one of them. They were receptive but they took it seriously, the evidence speaks for itself that they didnt take it enough. Over the same time as a pointed out, they tried to tackle a lot of things. Negotiation rulings, debt forgiveness, loan repayment. Operation fresh start for defaulted borrowers. Im not casting dispersions on what administrations feel they have mandates from the elector. Fafsa supported several initiatives. I would point out that this was a bipartisan mandate from congress. The facts speak for themselves of where we are today. If everything is a 30, you will be told that you do not have a strategic roadmap. You do not have a strategic priority. Unfortunately we are where we are because it did not rise to the top. You gave a suggestion to them three years ago. January of 2021, thats when the administration started. Your point, if everything is a priority, they have not made everything a priority. They have been focused on as we know, the student loan transfer scheme. This ministration has relentlessly focused on what they call student loan forgiveness. You do wonder, are they dishonest or incompetent . Do they think it is magic money that disappears when you forgive it, it goes away . You wonder why they wouldnt do the same with mortgage, auto, or credit card loans . People dont like to make those payments. Its not fair that some people have Mortgage Loans because they bought homes and some people dont or the paid off their homes. In this case, declan advised student loan process. In the last six months, since october when fafsa was supposed to have been done, the administration announced a transfer of 9 billion of Student Loans to taxpayers. He announced nearly 5. 5 hours are enrolled in the save plan. December 6, the administration transfers 5 billion student and to taxpayers. Every 21, administration transfers 1. 2 billion in loan debt to taxpayers. They transferred 5. 8 Student Loan Debt to the taxpayers. Not to be out done or to stop pursuing this, just this week on april 8, the administration announced new plans to transfer more student debt to trent tax place. Mr. Feldman, what student population is most negatively impacted . Most impacted by the fafsa displays delays . That impacts the most the students who need the money to go to college. It also impacts the most students with the least experience with college. The firstgeneration students. Children of immigrants. Populations that may have been told all their life that college was not for them. They worked very hard and now they honestly dont know whether they can afford it . It would not impact much of those families who have several kids who have went through college and they know the process. The first time once in addition to lower income folks. Does that help Lower College costs for families . Unfortunately, i do not think that it helps to lower costs. It just makes it more clear. There is no information to make a decision with. The longerterm view of this, does the student loan transfer scheme reduce College Costs . Are you asking me if forgiving people of loans yes, what does it do overall to College Costs broadly if that happens . You dont have to pay, what happened to the costs overall . For people who dont have to pay their loans, it got cheaper. It did, but a study from the Federal Reserve found that every 1 subsidy, Higher Education captured to increase. If you delegitimize it itself, if you dont have to pay for, it will result in more cost being raised. I see that i expired my time and i yield back. I would like to recognize dr. Adams. Thank you. Thank you for being here. We want to welcome North Carolina in the house. Let me say that i agree with my colleagues that we have a situation right now that we need to try to fix. I have had 40 years on the College Campus as a professor and administrator, i do understand what the students need as it relates to Financial Aid. I work with many students who were firstgeneration and they needed the support. They still do. I have a question about the designated entities for ms. Cook. We have heard more concerns about the stakeholders and the inability to access student federal Tax Information to support the enrollment and the completion. We are looking at the interpretation of the fafsa act and the future act, which is the bill i sponsor. The entities like treo and gear up and state agencies, are unable to access this data. Let me ask you, can you share more information about this designated . How it impacts the support of various stakeholders that can be provided to students . As you point out, the designated entities gives groups like treo, gear up, and nonprofits who establish relationships with students the ability to know the fafsa completion status on a student level. That helps me know that kim has not completed her fafsa and i should target her , reach out to her, rather than reaching out broadly. Targeted outreach to support students through the completion. We have struggled with this for quite some time. The new definitions of federal Tax Information put into question some ability to share information. We learned on friday that the designated entities with establish relationships with students will be able to have access to the data after each state Agency Updates their agreement with the departments. Okay. Are there additional components of this issue that congress or the department of education need to consider for this years fafsa process or the 2025 2026 . The ability to share this data, which we hope will come in time for the cycle. It may come over the summer or the coming cycle, it will be critical to targeted outreach. There are still open questions about the ability to share nonfederal Tax Information across campus. Perhaps with other campus support. To coordinate means eligibility. Thank you. Let me ask can you share some of the ongoing challenges faced by under resourced institutions . Particularly in terms of ability to support students and navigating the Financial Aid process . One of the strengths of the Higher Education systems, we have so many different schools serving different types of students. Under resourced students serve working against the institutions is the fact they generally have fewer staff. Fewer resources working with, fewer systems expertise and right now with the fafsa rollout, the deal e is asking them to do a lot of work. They are sorting through a lot of files manually to determine which files and records are accurate and which ones are not. That leaves under resourced institutions at a disadvantage. Those schools cannot get out offers as quickly. If the challenges continue, what are some of the longterm impacts on student enrollment . I worry that we will lose the lowest income, the high talent students, they would choose not to enroll in college. That will be bad for the entire economic and social mobility of our state. I worry that we will not be able to well predict our class and provide the right services to the students who show up. The longer we delay, we also delay the connecting of students to Campus Services like orientation, finding an advisor, summer bridge, similar programs. We are not sending the students there for success. I would like to recognize mr. Thank you. I could actually be a witness today. I have two children that are graduating seniors in high school. I am going through the process like many other parents across this nation. So many of us recognize that our students cannot move through the Financial Aid process until the fafsa process actually is completed. In fact, many colleges will not let you in the color ship scholarship process until fafsa is completed. Im looking at emails right now, i will laugh about some of them in a second. The first email i got was from january 7th. As is my daughters name, cannot be eligible for student aid without your input. Help them complete the fafsa form online. For the next month after that, i got online and tried to fill out my portion. It is to verify my income over and over again, several times per week, for months. I finally gave up. February 4th, i submitted an inquiry. I got a case number back that day that said, i cannot get through because you keep giving me error messages. It says it is your fault and my daughter needs me to process this. You could apply for a federal student aid when she goes to college. I got no response. Just to say, thank you for your inquiry. Two months later, lastly, i get an email that says we have closed your case. In the interim it finally worked after many several weeks of attempts. Finally worked. I get an email two months later saying we close your case and even more ironically, i have another email from last thursday that says, thank you for contacting federal student aid. We would like your thoughts on your experience. Im pretty sure they will get the thoughts of my experience there you guys. My experience was not good. Its not just me but hundreds of thousands of other individuals in this country trying to go through the same process. Having the same frustrations. Their kids are looking for an opportunity to get Higher Education. That is all they want. I am hearing from my institutions of Higher Learning back home and one told me one third of the fafsa applications are coming in this year compared to years past. Less students are actually moving through the process. Next year, we will have less students enrolled in institutions of Higher Education. The same institution reported the department of education stop sending them updates as of march 22nd, 2024. They say they have no visibility on the retuning students or new students with who has effectively done that so they can contact those students that applied or are returning to ask what to do to try to get them through the process . The quote i found interesting, from one institution of Higher Learning in my district the 2024 2025 fafsa rollout resented a creditor threat then covid. Those are challenges the students are facing. They needed the Financial Aid to get out of where they are in life and i cannot do it because the government failed them. I know all of you guys agree with that. I appreciate your testimony but i wanted to give my two cents as a parent going through that process. I want to ask you this, based on where things stand, how behind is the Development Cycle for the 2025 2026 fafsa compared to a typical year . Do believe there will be additional delays for 2025 . A normal year, typically in february, the department of education puts out the draft for the upcoming october 1st. Last year for the 2024, it was march 23rd and set a february 24th, the year before. We are past march and we still dont have the draft of the new fafsa. We have six months. Another concern is that the Financial Aid formula has annual inflationary adjustments and through the process that they had not done, i provided them with documentation to show how i calculated them. It was not as simple as swapping numbers. This suggests that it was not limited in the modular fashion. It should be as difficult as it was in previous years. Instead of taking the infrastructure redesign as an opportunity to improve the process. They could still get it done by october 1st, but i see no signs that they are working on it. Probably because they are still working on getting this years fafsa 2024 2025 done. I lack confidence that they will not have to delay the october 1st date. I do as well. Because of the delays, many students need Financial Aid the most are opting not to attend next year because of the uncertainty of it all. That is a shame. I yield back. I recognize mr. Corner. Thank you. Your experience on the ground is really incredibly important right now. I come from a state which looking at the completed fafsa, we are number one in terms of obviously it has been an incredible source of frustration in my district. I have a letter from a college which is a Small Institution in connecticut. About 500 students, a nonprofit college that serves important population. They have a significant number of students with disabilities that are admitted. The percentage of help is 61 . 95 use student aid. They are doing great work. The number of applications coming in this year went one up 40 . The deposit is down 60 . They really do not have the financial strength to absorb that. Again, the president tracy supports the intent but it obviously is a crisis. I asked that put on the record. I was around in 2010 when we passed the post9 11 g. I. Bill. It was probably one of the most popular important things that we did in terms at a time when we had so many people serving overseas. The rollout that i think some of you might recall was a complete fiasco. The da open up the portal, the system crashed. Returning veterans who were about to articulate still have not received subsidies from the da. The va. I remember the secretary of the time basically all hands on deck to manually write checks so that veterans could make their payments to begin classes. It did not do the trick by itself it is still took a number of years before that Program Actually was able to finally live up to the mission of serving people who i think every american supported in terms of giving them a stronger benefit under the g. I. Bill. Ms. Cook, you talked about the fact that we have a week of action coming up. Again that is the oneonone effort. In your testimony, you described your own personal experience to help students complete fafsa as fast as they can. Ideally if we had the bodies and boots on the ground to get out there, can we make a dent in terms of that approach . I will let ms. Cook go first and mr. Drager respond. Thank you for the question of urgency. He pointed out that we have a week of action. We need days of action. We have a limited timeframe left with the High School Seniors. We are not sure yet how renewal rates are going for Current College students . I would put it in for renewal rates, as well. This time has to be well spent with the students we have access to from the northeast schools. They will go later into the year, through june. Others are ending in may. Urgency to spend time with the students while we have them in school, and to ring the bell on the fact that the cycle will be extended and we have to look for ways to continue to support and access students through the summer. Thank you. Thank you for raising the institutional voices in your district. You have been a champion. I started in 21, i remember the rollout. It will take all of us rolling up our sleeves to get the work done. Financial aid offices are short staffed and have been. Im happy to report that they will put in the time. They will help students complete the fafsa. This year is salvageable. It will be painful that we can get through it together. I have dealt with your membership in connecticut. These are great people who are committed to helping students. Hopefully that will happen. I want to use my remaining seconds, the department in terms of Public Service were in a court order to fix that program and it was butchered in the prior administration. Some degree the prior sedation prioritization is not under its own control. To that i yield back. Thank you. I recently heard from a constituent who reported that her grandson had been accepted into penn state university. I represent that district. This case, the young man is a star student varsity basketball player. Student council, volunteers with his church. It should be a happy occasion for him. He does not know at this point, the family doesnt know, if he can attend the university because they will need the Financial Aid that should be due to them. Its a difficult decision for them. They do not know when they will get answers. This is an extremely frustrating hearing to me. Perhaps one of the most frustrating hearings i have been part of. Its not only that student, we have heard from hundreds of across the district. Maybe millions . I dont know how many across the country who are in a similar situation. I also talked to at least three schools that are smaller in my district, to the president s, they literally were not sure and may not be short if they can open on time . They are serving populations that will need that Financial Aid. At this point, they should be fairly well locked in on how many students will attend their school. They do not know. This is affecting students and the schools themselves, as well. It is a disaster. Im amazed and disappointed that we are here. Is not a timing issue. They have had three years to work on this. It does not seem to be a money issue. They have not come and asked for Additional Resources to roll this out. Is seems to be bureaucratic incompetence or they have not prioritized it. I know the issue of Student Loans, whether its the loan forgiveness programs that they try to go around Supreme Court by picking up new schemes, whether that directly affected this, i dont know . Probably. They certainly paid more attention to that then they have the mandate to fix the fafsa process. Its almost a pattern now. We have been alarmed by the department dated testing. The accounting practices. Notably the department failed two audits in two years. The independent auditor had to issue a disclaimer that they could not trust a basic calculation throughout the budget. You mentioned in your testimony that the department initially refused to update the formulas for inflation. It wouldve cost students to get less Financial Aid that was due to them. They couldnt even do basic testing before fafsa went live , to ensure that the information was calculated correctly. As i said, it is affecting students everywhere. I get calls frequently all the time to disband the department of education altogether. People in my district believe the federal government should not have a department of education. This sure does not make arguing to keep it any easier. I will ask you, given the track record, what repercussions do you think this failure will have on public trust in the integrity of its programs . And on stewardship of taxpayer dollars . Even in a normal year, 2 Million Students do not qualify for the program because they did not apply. They would have qualified. Of that, more than 1 million would have gotten the maximum. It would be far worse this year. Essays the government money but not for the right reasons. The challenges, we are seven months behind. If they started this process several months earlier, we would not be in this situation. I am running out of time but can we make the case that we need a department of education any longer . What is the alternative . What would be better . Maybe we can get someone to run the Financial Aid Program Better . We can argue about the amount of Financial Aid or the impact on college maybe that is something we should talk about . We should never argue about effectively administering the aid that has been made available. I am out of time and i yield back. I would like to recognize mr. Scott. Thank you. When we started talking about the simplification act, i was chairman of the committee. The senator from tennessee was a major priority for him. You could simplify the form, cut the number of questions by two thirds, the simplification, you could increase the number of students eligible and increase the amount of aid they could get. That was the goal. Regrettably it did not work out that way. No one on this committee on either side of the aisle was happy with whats going on. Mr. Gregor, you keep talking about the six month delay. Actually, a six month delay after a oneyear extension. Its worse than what you explained. Mr. Cook, if the program work as expected, what would the how would the complexities of the fafsa form and the benefits for students and families if it were working as expected . The form working as expected, we anticipate we would have increased fafsa completion rates. They are important to us because they signal increased enrollment and completion. We would have a faster process for students and dependent students with the contributor parents. They might experience fafsa record low completion time as low as 10 to 15 minutes. Most importantly, as i talked about equity issues, we would have expanded pell Grant Eligibility to additional students for higher awards. Thank you. Ms. Feldman, you have been dealing with this. Do you have a date which you are expected this to be resolved . We have yet to be able to provide offers to students, which we usually due to admissions. We tried hard to signal that they need to stick with us. That it will be affordable. It is hard to have them trust us when we keep telling them they have to wait. Has a Department Given you a date to have confidence to get information . Yesterday they published dates are indicated that the remainder of the issues with fafsa will be resolved sometime beginning early may. That is about one month from now. Were hoping for some students they will be able to get offers center. If the system worked, what information would you get from fafsa and who would you what would you do with that information . We would understood understand the index to tell us which students are eligible. We have a program for students below the poverty line. We announced a new program for free tuition for North Carolina with an income under 80,000. We were able to show students a complete picture of how affordable the institution can be and hope they would enroll. We also know a lot more about the following enrollment as we had to extend the deadline. Students are very reasonably waiting until they have a real offer in hand to make a decision. Someone low income, eligible for snap or medicaid, why cant you make an offer based on that information . I have floated a few ideas to the campus of alternative ways to make offers. Honestly, when we give students Financial Aid, we are using taxpayer money from the state of North Carolina. We do not want to be in a position where we are risking the taxpayer dollars because we did not estimate correctly. We have not moved forward yet with those plans. We might be in that position if delays continue. Why is personal data not helpful . If you were going to court and you had two thirds of your deposition done, there would be a third of the information missing. If you were doing your taxes and you only found out the first three lines with your name, the government would not know what you earned and what you owed. We do not have a full picture. In some cases we have no information. The match with the government or the irs, did not work. No index was calculated or sent to us. I would like to recognize ms. Hodgins. Thank you. They get to the witnesses. I appreciate your time. Im frustrated to say the least that we need to be having this hearing. Seeing how the Biden Administration had three years to implement the fafsa simplification act. The up dated free application for federal student aid has been anything but simple. I am a parent of two college students. One in college, one yet to be. A senior in high school. We experienced all of the things that were reported in trying to complete this. My home state, one of 13 states that mandates requirements of the fafsa for high school graduation. Not only are we adding to the stress of whether or not the students can afford to attend college. Some cases where adding to the stress of the thought process and whether or not they will complete high school. Many of the states including mine have waivers. The question will be, do parents , have they been communicated to about the process to decrease their let s levels of stress . Department of education took a year and have to start working on this process and instead dedicated nearly all of their time to the illegal student loan forgiveness scheme. I have been hearing from Guidance Counselors, parents across the state about how far reaching and disastrous the rollout has been. 18 Million Students each year roughly fallout. Now we are seeing nearly 330,000 applications a have to be reprocessed due to the department pulling the wrong tax data from the form and inability to make corrections if the students make mistakes. This is par for the course for the administration and in my view is another example of their incompetence. Im concerned about parents and students not having they answers and being left in limbo. I am one of those parents. Im also concerned about the universities experiencing uncertainty around enrollment numbers in smaller cohorts than expected. Resulting with an ability to budget and forecast. At this point, there is no way to get back the time that was wasted. We have to consider now how the department of education will be held to account and how we can ensure that they will support students and universities moving forward. Ms. Feldman and mr. Gregor, have either of you receive guidance from the department on how to support students who are having difficulties with submitting or editing the fafsa . We have received electronic announcement with guidance about when it is expected to be corrected and email service for schools having trouble. We deceived received sometimes i find out a whole bunch of things on social media. That is unbelievable that you need to get information from social media and not the department. Fair. It has been a rich source of means about Financial Aid on social media. I would say there are ways in which they are providing support but it rapidly changes and revised. Sometimes not with the most partnership. I would say the department of education has put more energy and resource into providing support to institutions Financial Aid offices and students the last several months than it did leading up to when it should have launched. As i pointed out, unfortunately, that is a little bit too late in the process to be coming up with these resources. This hearing and congress as having an impact. Last night, a new operational piece of guidance that was far more direct than they had been in the weeks previous. We hope that continues. As we also talked about the College Support Strategy, it is providing boots on the Ground Support to Financial Aid offices. Again, it is coming after all of the crisis that has had. We are looking for Lessons Learned to improve this going forward. I appreciate your personal experience with this to support the schools of indiana. With the time i have left, we heard from universities guaranteeing last years aid for students to continue education. Is that something that would help . That would be the last resort. If the department can bring online functionality that is promising to be able to do the next couple of weeks, we will have turned a corner. We are hoping for that promise. Thank you. I would like to recognize the full committee. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank our witnesses for being with us today. Its a very serious issue revealing, it affects millions of people across the country. I want to talk about responsibility. A trait noticeably absent in the department of education fafsa disaster. Ms. Feldman, is it the responsibility of North Carolina families to ensure the fafsa not being riddled with technical errors, to allow students to submit information . Or is it the departments responsibility . The responsibility of the department of education. Mr. Drager, thank you for being here again. Is it the responsibility of Financial Aid administrators to ensure fafsa data process and calculated accurately or the departments responsibility . Department of education. Is at the responsibility of congress to implement a bipartisan law passed over three years ago . Or the departments responsibility . The department of education. Congress passed the loss. The executive branch implements them. Thank you for clarifying that. Not just for the department but for the American People who often wonder why we are not putting people in jail. During the Biden Administration, the department has been busy. Of course being busy does not mean being effective. It certainly does not mean to provide benefits for the American People. You have worked in fafsa for 25 years. Would you describe the many fafsa as one of the more , the most important duties of the office of federal student aid . Its the bread and butter issue. This is one of the primary responsibilities of the u. S. Department of education and the office of federal student aid. Ms. Feldman, your years of experience with Financial Aid, have you seen a worse fafsa process . Im old enough to remember when it was on paper. Hopefully it will be better than that when its done. The year has been nothing but a disaster so far. Do you feel like we will have a smooth process in 2025 . I hope it will be a lot smoother but it is hard to know. I do not anticipate right now. It feels we will be ready in october. Thank you. Instead of implementing the fafsa, it is Crystal Clear the Department Spent its time, resources and staff, over the past three years on political projects. Some of which are unconstitutional. Do you believe the departments political agenda was more helpful to the American People, and seven ensuring 18 Million Students have a working fafsa . My hope is that this committee will dig into what the shortfalls were of the limitation . Whatever the department was working on, and detracted from fafsa. We are reaping the consequences of those actions. Millions of students are stuck in limbo wondering how they will pay for college . Thank you for clarifying that. This country deserves public leaders who fulfill their duties rather than shirk responsibilities and point the finger of blame at others. I often say that my middle initial, a, stands for accountability. Now is the time for secretary cardona to explain his abysmal leadership to the American People. It is clear that something needs to change. I yield back, mr. Chair. Thank you. Thank you everyone for your testimony. I would like to recognize mr. Scott for his closing remarks. Thank you. I thank the witnesses for your testimony. It underscores the critical need for swift action and accountability regarding fafsa accessibility. We also need to get the program on track. Fafsa supplication act was supposed to streamline the process and expand eligibility but this year setbacks continue to jeopardize opportunities for students. You see the alarming decline in fafsa submissions. Particularly from low income students. As many High Schoolers approach graduation day, urgency mounts for guidance and support from the department of education. So the students and colleges can plan for the Upcoming School year. Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this hearing. I thank the witnesses for their testimony. I want to say, thank you so much for your passion, your understanding of this industry, and being here to educate the American People to where we are and to the system we have been used to for so long. As i read your comments and testimony, each of you mentioned how hard the ground, those who rolled up their sleeves who are working 16 hours a day and weekends to make this happen. As we walked this process, we talk about leadership. They are really trying to make this work out. Priority, i read that there was in 2021, the beginning of the Biden Administration, there was informative to coo,. Has no experience for student aid experience. He was a litigator expert from the Consumer Financial protection bureau. From the beginning, if you cannot dictate this is where we put the energy, we would have the results we have now. What is the ultimate purpose of the department of education . Most americans think it is to educate. Leaders in the fafsa have brought chaos to students seeking education and institutions who mandate and provide education. Many have been distracted. Eric him. The low income students, first generation students, not represented. The upcoming years, collateral damage. There will be some small colleges across the country who will not be able to observe the drop in enrollment. Those in position will shudder. There will be additional damage to towns depending on revenue generated by the thriving College Campuses. At this is not enough, the Biden Administration recently found a bandwidth rulings to the threat of existence of another sector. The career and is additions for the bureaucrats are demanding this institution reduce the length of its curriculum with no impact or outcome. If they do not change the curriculum with an arbitrary and possible timeline, they will not receive federal funding. Those that cannot meet the demands of the ruling will face its interesting that just like the fafsa debacle we are dealing with, department of education, the technical institutions. Those hurt the most of the low and moderate income students, firstgeneration college students. Those who are at risk. I begin to wonder based on this success of failure, if the true goal of department of education is to educate. No accountability. No shame. No, i am sorry. There is no sense of priority. As we look at where we are today, i am convinced that there will be 18 Million Students and families that will remember that they were not the party the last two years. They put a Campaign Promise in place, its great for the president s future but terrible for the kids future. That is not the american way. We have always put our kids first before our needs. We see a much greater perfect union. There will be accountability. I am so impressed by what you said today. Everyone who sat here has commented on how much we need to make this work. We have a bipartisan agreement here. We will make this work. Too many children are not being serviced correctly. Those most vulnerable this memorial day weekend, u. S. Historian betty sharing scenes. Places and events that shaped the United States senate presenting to senators during the tuesday caucus lunch. The influence and power including Senate Majority leader lyndon johnson. The first female senator and mark twain works as a senate to. He was a promising rising author at the time. He was working on a book and he was in for a job that would help pay the bills and essentially promote his writing career. Despite his appearance, did give him a job in the clerks office. In that time, it was nine and usual. They often hired reporters and first respondents for mutual beneficial experience for both of them. He did not prove to be a particularly good senate employee. Betty koed with her book scenes. You can listen to q a on the podcast on the free cspan app. Cspan now is a free mobile app filtering unfiltered view of whats happening in washington leavened on the man. Keep up with the biggest live streams of floor proceedings from the congress, white house events, the court, campaign and more from the world of allah texola at your fingertips. You can stay current with the latest episodes of washington journals and find scheduling information for cspan, tv networks and cspan radio plus a variety of compelling podcast. Available in the apple store and google play. Scan the qr code to download for you today or visit the website, cspan. Org cspan now. Your front row seat to washington any time, anywhere. Next attorney general Merrick Garland testifying on the president s 2025 budget request for the Justice Department before the house recreations of committee. He was questioned on a variety of topics and putting Holding China and mexico accountable to the role in the crisis. The new role for firearm dealers in the special counsel investigation into president bidens handling of classified duct and grade it runs just over two hours