Dive Temporary:
- Home lawmakers on Friday overwhelmingly handed a invoice that may require the U.S. Division of Schooling to make the Free Software for Federal Pupil Support out there by Oct. 1 every year. The measure would take impact in 2025 for the 2026-27 FAFSA.
- The invoice, handed by a 381-1 vote, comes after the Schooling Division’s rocky rollout of the revamped FAFSA over the last monetary assist cycle. In 2023, the company launched the shape within the closing days of December — almost three months later than it normally turns into out there. The only real lawmaker who voted towards the invoice later stated it was by mistake, Newsweek reported.
- Sen. Invoice Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, has launched companion laws within the Senate, the place lawmakers solely have a short while to cross the measure earlier than a brand new congressional session begins Jan. 3. In the event that they don’t, the invoice must be reintroduced for consideration.
Dive Perception:
Federal legislation at present requires the Schooling Division to launch the FAFSA on or near Oct. 1 “to the utmost extent practicable,” although the statute offers the company till Jan. 1 every year to make the shape out there.
The FAFSA Deadline Act would take away this flexibility and require the U.S. training secretary to certify to Congress by Sept. 1 that the company will meet the October deadline. If not, the training secretary must testify earlier than Congress by Sept. 30 concerning the failure and the monetary influence of the delay on college students and their households.
Rep. Erin Houchin, a Republican from Indiana who launched the invoice, blasted the Schooling Division for the tumultuous FAFSA launch final assist cycle.
She pointed to a latest report from the U.S. Authorities Accountability Workplace that discovered almost three-quarters of calls to the Schooling Division went unanswered from January to Could in the course of the kind’s rollout. She additionally famous that the Schooling Division has delayed the discharge of this yr’s FAFSA.
The Schooling Division introduced earlier this yr that it might absolutely launch the shape by Dec. 1, although company officers stated on a name Thursday that they now count on to make it publicly out there “within the coming days,” USA At this time reported.
“It’s crucial that we don’t enable this to change into precedent,” Houchin stated in help of the invoice Friday. “We wish this program to work.”
Democrats additionally overwhelmingly supported the invoice — even after some initially rejected the measure. That features Rep. Bobby Scott, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Home’s training committee.
Scott voted towards the proposal in July when the Republican-controlled Home Committee on Schooling and the Workforce superior the measure to the total Home.
On the time, he argued the proposal would power the Schooling Division to hurry the discharge of the FAFSA with none extra help or funding. In flip, the shape might wind up riddled with the identical technical points that candidates skilled final cycle, he prompt.
However on Friday, Scott voted in help of the measure, noting that the invoice would now take impact in 2025 as an alternative of this yr, because the Oct. 1 deadline has already handed for the present cycle.
The proposal “units a transparent, agency deadline for rolling out FAFSA white nonetheless giving the Division of Schooling time to make sure the applying capabilities correctly for all college students,” Scott stated simply previous to the vote. “The invoice strikes a stability between making certain well timed entry to monetary assist and never compromising the standard of the applying course of.”
Increased training teams have additionally thrown their help behind the invoice.
Earlier this week, over three dozen greater training organizations urged Home leaders to cross the measure.
“You will need to make sure that college students and households have adequate time to make one of many greatest monetary selections of their lives,” Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Schooling, wrote in a letter on behalf of the teams.
This yr, the Schooling Division launched the FAFSA on Oct. 1 to a small group of scholars to check the shape. The company introduced Thursday that 14,000 college students have since efficiently submitted their kinds, and that it hasn’t discovered any important bugs in the course of the testing interval.
