The House’s education committee Wednesday advanced a bill that would require the U.S. Department of Education to release the Free Application for Federal Student Aid by Oct. 1 each year.
Rep. Erin Houchin, a Republican from Indiana who introduced the new bill, called the rollout of the updated FAFSA a “complete failure” and said it created unnecessary hardship for students’ families and colleges.
The Republican-controlled Committee on Education and the Workforce voted 34-6 to send the legislation to the full House of Representatives.
The proposal received conditional support from some Democratic lawmakers, who called for increased investment in the Education Department to allow it to fulfill its mandate.
The Education Department is legally required to release the FAFSA by Jan. 1 each year. However, it typically makes the form public on Oct. 1.
This year was the exception. The department released a simplified version of the FAFSA in late December, almost three months later than what students and colleges had become accustomed to. Even after its publication, the form faced technical glitches and formula errors.
The disastrous rollout had ripple effects across higher education.
Many colleges postponed their commitment deadlines, and some states gave students more time to complete the FAFSA to qualify for state grant programs. As of June 28, 46% of the high school class of 2024 had submitted the form, down from 53.2% at the same time last year.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, chair of the House education committee, criticized the Biden administration’s Education Department for a lack of transparency around the process.
“The administration’s abysmal lack of communication about the FAFSA release date was followed by an inept ‘soft launch’,” said the North Carolina Republican.
Houchin accused the Education Department of mismanaging its priorities.
“I’m especially frustrated considering the Department of Education had three years to simplify FAFSA as Congress directed,” she said. “Instead, [Education Secretary Miguel Cardona] and President Biden chose to focus their time and efforts on an illegal student loan forgiveness scheme.”
Cardona has pushed back on this criticism in the past, saying that the department’s debt forgiveness initiatives did not divert resources from FAFSA.
Rep. Jahana Hayes, a Democrat from Connecticut, voiced support for the bill and urged her colleagues to do the same. But she disavowed Houchin’s comments on Cardona and the president.
“We have a uniquely qualified secretary of education in Dr. Cardona,” Hayes said. “Through his testimony and through personal experience working directly with him, I truly believe that he is doing the best he can to resolve this problem.”
Virginia Rep. Bobby Scott, the top Democrat on the education committee, voted against the bill and expressed doubts that it alone would fix the FAFSA’s woes.
“Republicans are setting a fast approaching deadline for the department to meet without providing any additional resources or technical support that might actually help,” Scott said. “What we don’t want is for the department to rush to meet arbitrary deadlines and push out a FAFSA form that, once again, has the same technical problems that students experience this year.”
The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators expressed similar concerns Wednesday.
Formalizing the FAFSA’s Oct. 1 launch date has long been a priority for NASFAA, according to Karen McCarthy, the group’s vice president of public policy and federal relations.
“When operating as intended, an earlier release date allows colleges and universities to provide financial aid information to students much sooner,” she said in a statement.
But cementing the earlier launch date needs to be part of a comprehensive plan, McCarthy said. She pointed to the need for a clear timeline from the Education Department throughout the FAFSA process, including when data transfer and form corrections will be available.
“Forcing an October 1 deadline this year does not guarantee a fully functioning form, and may in fact work against efforts to release a product that has been tested and found to run smoothly,” she said.
Rep. Bob Good, a Republican from Virginia, introduced an amendment to the bill that would require the Education Department to confirm each year that it is on track to meet the deadline by Sept. 1.
The amendment, which the committee approved Wednesday, would also require the education secretary to testify before Congress if the department anticipated missing the deadline.
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