“Reform is overdue” and there are bipartisan efforts to make higher education work better for students, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and former Tennessee governor told an audience of more than 200 government, policy, and higher education representatives.
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander displays the FAFSA.
Unfurling a lengthy paper document that he said was a printout of the FAFSA, Alexander recommended cutting the form from more than 100 questions to fewer between 15 and 25. About two million potential students each year don’t fill out the form because it’s too complicated and intimidating, and making it simpler would encourage them – especially lower-income students – do so in order to be considered for federal Pell grants and student loans, said Alexander, former president of the University of Tennessee.
“I think probably the single quickest and best way to make college more affordable to more low-income people is to simplify the FAFSA,” said Alexander.
Making the document simpler and reducing red tape may also put a dent in the $6 billion that the Department of Treasury says is lost each year in over-awarding and under-awarding federal aid, added Alexander.
Alexander also advocated taking a scalpel to the “bewildering” system of federal student loan repayment, a major issue as default rates soar and tens of millions of borrowers collectively owe about $1.5 trillion.
