AP News, March 20th, 2007
The Department of Education and Congress seem ready to take another swipe at a task they've struggled with for years: simplifying the befuddling form that 14 million students a year fill out to apply for federal financial aid for college.
Despite some improvements over the years, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid _ or FAFSA _ still runs eight pages including instructions and 101 questions. That's longer than most tax returns.
The Department of Education has estimated it takes an hour to complete, but one study claims it's more like 10. Some students simply give up, forfeiting aid such as Pell Grants, worth up to $4,310 next year and subsidized student loans they may be entitled to receive.
How to simplify the form _ and get students information earlier about their eligibility _ will be among the major topics on the agenda Thursday when Education Secretary Margaret Spellings convenes a summit in Washington. The purpose of the meeting is to implement recommendations made last year by a national commission on higher education.
The commission called for simplifying the FAFSA, as well as broader forms and efficiencies in the 20 separate student aid programs run by the federal government.
Ahead of that summit, the department planned to announce on Wednesday a new online "FAFSA4caster" tool, debuting April 1, that will let students know before they graduate from high school how much aid to expect. Officials hope students who thought college was too expensive might reconsider, while others will see how much they'll have to cull from other sources before it's too late.
"The folks we need to reach are people who may think college is not an option for them because of a lack of affordability _ they don't know how to jump on," Spellings told The Associated Press in a phone interview Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Democrats introduced legislation Tuesday in Congress that would allow students to apply early for aid, and would create a two-page FAFSA-EZ form, a simplified version similar to the IRS' 1040-EZ.
"If you can figure this out, you should just go to graduate school," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., of the current FAFSA. "Forget the four years of college."
The proposal also calls for students to be able to choose to have family tax data transferred directly from the IRS to the Department of Education. That could reduce errors and cut 31 questions from the current FAFSA, according to a new report by the Institute for College Access and Success, an independent nonprofit group.
The confusion surrounding the FAFSA is more than just an inconvenience. One study has estimated 1.5 million low-income students who would have been eligible for Pell Grants in 2004 didn't complete the form.
Colleges, meanwhile, spend countless hours helping students negotiate the paperwork, and an estimated $400 million verifying that tax data has been transferred correctly, as required by the Education Department.
Tying in the tax data "would eliminate a lot of long lines, a lot of frustrations on the part of the students as well as the counselor," said LaFawn Green, a student at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla.
Still, history suggests there's no panacea for cutting the FAFSA's red tape. The document has shed 10 pages and dozens of questions over the years, and 96 percent are now filed online (though there's a paper worksheet to do first). But more questions haven't been cut for fear it would mean less aid for some students.
And cutting questions wouldn't necessarily reduce paperwork. Dallas Martin, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, notes how states and colleges depend on the FAFSA to calculate their own financial aid awards, so they need it to collect enough information.
"We don't want to go back and complicate the system again, and make it so people again have to go back and fill out two or three forms" to get money, he said. "It sounds simple until you start walking through the details."
Transferring the data from the IRS could solve that problem, though there have been worries about feasibility. But Lauren Asher, co-author of the report for the Institute of College Access and Success, notes the IRS has started providing tax information to other third parties _ for instance, allowing taxpayers to have their information shared directly with mortgage brokers. Providing it to FAFSA processors should be simple.
An IRS spokeswoman declined to comment Tuesday.
Asked about the Democratic proposal, Spellings said she was pleased there's a "consensus around the need to have a vastly improved system." But she said involving the IRS would do little good without more fundamental reforms.
"While we need to take steps and certainly this is a step, we certainly need to think more comprehensively," she said. "We simply have to get more kids to college."
Education Department FAFSA site: http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/
Institute for College Access and Success: http://www.ticas.org/index.php
