Rep. Erin Houchin (R-Ind.) spoke to Breitbart News Saturday about the Department of Education’s late rollout of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form, and how it was “another example” of the “Biden-Harris administration blunders.”
Houchin explained how the FAFSA form lets students and their families “know how much federal student aid they may qualify for” when making a decision about what college to attend.
The Department of Education recently announced that the full FAFSA form would not be available until December 1, and would only be released in October for a “limited set of students and institutions” in order to “iron out issues,” according to the New York Times.
“It is just another example here of the Biden-Harris administration blunders. Every single federal agency from that’s responsible for the border, for the FBI, for the Department of Education, inflation, all of these. Every single thing under their watch has been a complete disaster, and this Department of Education FAFSA issue is no different,” Houchin explained.
“They’ve had four years. Congress, before I got there, passed the FAFSA Simplification Act four years ago, and they’ve had four years to simplify the form. Last year it was a complete disaster. We still had, in July, students who could not access the form to figure out what aid they might receive for going to college. Instead, the administration has been spending all of their time focused on the illegal student loan bail-out scheme, the transfer of wealth from the middle class to liberal elites. This is just another example of their failures and we’re trying to put forward legislation that will actually hold them accountable,” Houchin added.
When asked by host Matthew Boyle about what the FAFSA Deadline Act would do, and how it would “rein in” the government’s failures, Houchin explained that the FAFSA Deadline Act would “try to put some accountability and some guidance” into the process and bring “transparency” to the American people.
In July, Houchin introduced the FAFSA Deadline Act “to establish an earlier application processing cycle for the FAFSA.”
“When they passed the Simplification Act, they didn’t put a deadline in. October 1st has been sort of a suggested benchmark. Last year, we know they missed October 1st. They said they would have it by December 1st; they didn’t. They said they’d have it by January 1st; they didn’t. It has been a complete disaster. And, if any families like mine, I’ve got two that are in college, have to deal with this, it was inaccessible completely. And, then when they finally did make it accessible it was not accurate information and it gave back information that would suggest that students either qualified for more aid than they were entitled to, or less. So, the FAFSA Deadline Act says that they have to have the form available by October 1st, and if they don’t – if they think they can’t have it available by October 1st, then they have to work with Congress. They have to notify us by September 1st, to let us help try to get the form available,” Houchin said.
“The FAFSA Deadline Act is an attempt to try to put some accountability and some guidance, as well as ask them to testify to Congress about why they aren’t going to meet it. So, there is some transparency for the American people about what’s happening in the Department of Education, so families can plan for their future,” Houchin explained.
“Eighteen million families across the country have to use the FAFSA. In some states, like Indiana, it is required by the law. You have to complete the FAFSA, and it has been inaccessible. What the FAFSA is supposed to do, is to let students know how much federal student aid they may qualify for, and that would be – help them determine – where they may be able to afford to go to college. So, if you don’t get a decision from the feds on how much you may qualify for, and again in the last year’s rollout some students got notifications that they, due to incorrect reporting on the DOE side, that they might qualify for more money than they were entitled to, only to find out that that was incorrect information, or on the flip side of that, less money,” Houchin added.