WASHINGTON — Months after the introduction of the simplified Form for applying for state financial aid for studies faced a series of high-profile problems that caused processing delays and frustrated students and families, a state regulator on Tuesday offered some additional explanations about the problems and made recommendations for the U.S. Department of Education moving forward.
Members of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development expressed their frustration Tuesday over the botched rollout and its impact on students and families at a hearing that coincided with the release of a A few insights from the Government Accountability Office were among the main problems that complicated the implementation of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) for 2024–25.
Although the application was revised after Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act, advocates expressed concern about processing delays due to the lack of adjustment to inflation, It is Formula error and his Errors in the tax dataMajor problems initially prevented parents without a social security number from completing the form.
The Department has been working to resolve issues related to the 2024–25 form and has re-evaluated the implementation of the 2025–26 form, taking into account feedback from students, families, and stakeholders.
On Monday, Department published a report Review the implementation of the 2024–25 form and progress in improving the user experience since the introduction of the streamlined form.
These efforts also include the Department through a gradual introduction of the 2025-26 form to resolve any issues that may arise before opening to everyone on December 1. The staggered approach will result in the 2025-26 FAFSA being fully available two months later than usual.
Members of both parties criticized the release of the 2024-25 form at Tuesday’s hearing.
Subcommittee Chairman Burgess Owens said the “implementation of the FAFSA program was marked by delays, errors and frustration – and meant the loss of their higher education dreams for some of our most vulnerable students.”
The Utah Republican said the “real-life impact of the Biden administration’s failures has been devastating.”
Rep. Frederica Wilson, ranking member of the subcommittee, said implementation of the FAFSA Simplification Act has been “hampered by a series of errors by the Department of Education, resulting in delays and ongoing setbacks in the rollout of the new application.”
The Florida Democrat expressed frustration that “aside from the dozens of letters Congress has sent, this is not the first hearing this year on this issue, nor is it the first application cycle to address these issues.”
Lack of information
In one of two GAO reports released Tuesday, the regulator found that about 432,000 fewer people filed FAFSA applications compared to the previous year — a 3% decline through the end of August.
According to GAO, the decline in applications was “most pronounced among students and lower-income families.”
Investigators also found that the department did not always provide students with timely information about delays in processing their applications, changes in their eligibility for student aid, or “solutions to technical obstacles they encountered during the application process.”
Melissa Emrey-Arras, a GAO director responsible for education work, said at Tuesday’s hearing that delays “have significantly hampered [students’] Ability to choose a college, think smartly about their finances and whether they can afford school.”
“Can you imagine it? It’s like buying a house but not knowing how much help you’re going to get and having to make a commitment right away,” Emrey-Arras said.
Understaffing leads to unanswered calls
The government regulator also found that due to staff shortages, nearly three-quarters of all calls to the call center went unanswered in the first five months of the 2024-25 rollout – a total of 4 million out of 5.4 million calls.
Regarding communication with schools, GAO found that the department “consistently failed to meet promised deadlines and to provide timely notice to colleges of timeline changes during the 2024–25 FAFSA rollout.”
Marisol Cruz Cain, a GAO director who oversees information technology work, said the Office of Federal Student Aid “did not fully test the system, which led to numerous performance issues.”
Cruz Cain said that after the initial deployment, the FSA “found 55 defects, almost twice as many as in testing the entire system before deployment.”
Improvement plan
On a Monday Letter to the Presidents of Colleges and Universities Referring to progress on the 2025-26 form, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said the department had “worked tirelessly to completely overhaul a system that had remained largely untouched for four decades and itself included twenty different subsystems that required significant changes – a comprehensive redesign to enable the most comprehensive changes to federal financial aid eligibility and processes in years.”
The department outlined in its report On Monday, 10 steps were taken to improve the FAFSA application process, such as increasing the number of call center employees – more than 700 up-to-date employees were hired. The department is also working to resolve issues that families without Social Security numbers have faced when filling out the form.
The department’s efforts also include strengthening its leadership team and offering “additional outreach and support to students and families who most need help completing the form.”
In a statement responding to Tuesday’s hearing, a department spokesperson said, “After the first comprehensive overhaul of the FAFSA system in more than four decades, over 500,000 more students are eligible for Pell Grants than at the same time last year.”
“We sought input from students and families, colleges and partners, and provided more than 1,000 documents to the Government Accountability Office,” the spokesperson added. “Thanks to these contributions and community partnerships, we have reduced the gap in FAFSA applications to about 2% compared to the same period last year – down from 40% in March.”
