It seems, all of a sudden, that there’s a rush among policy makers in Washington to chop off questions from the 108-question Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as the FAFSA.
Senator Lamar Alexander, who has been beating the FAFSA simplification drum for several years, has said that the Senate education committee he chairs will take up his bipartisan bill for a two-question aid application this spring.
And last month President Obama put out his own proposal for cutting 30 questions from the form, reviving a 2009 proposalby his administration to eliminate complicated questions relating to families’ business assets and investments, among other things. The agreement on FAFSA simplification reflects a consensus among many that the complex questionnaire scares some families off -- and that a simple form would boost enrollments of low-income students.
But many colleges and states want to put the brakes on the race to eliminate as many FAFSA questions as possible. Although they support the goal of making it easier for students to apply for aid, they’re concerned that cutting off too many questions from the form would make it harder to determine which students are actually in need of student aid.
They argue that FAFSA simplification that goes too far wouldn’t result in any net reduction in burden on families and students. Even if the federal government doesn’t ask some questions about a family’s financial circumstances, colleges and state grant agencies say they still need to collect that information to dole out institutional and state aid.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/02/09/policy-makers-push-fafsa-simplification-colleges-and-states-worry-about-lost-data