Lawmakers express concern over next year’s FAFSA

WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) — Four million missed calls and about 432,000 fewer FAFSA submissions later, the Government Accountability Office says the Department of Education’s new FAFSA launch hurt lower-income students the most.

“These are the families that need education to help achieve an economic future,” Government Accountability Office Director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues Melissa Emrey-Arras said.

The GAO shared findings from its new report on the FAFSA rollout during a House hearing Tuesday. It described delays and website problems that weren’t fixed for months.

“For example, if you were born in the year 2000, you simply couldn’t proceed,” Emrey-Arras said.

The report also found the department knew there could be delays as early as August 2022 but didn’t announce that until March of 2023.

“Regrettably, implementation of the law has been derailed by a series of mistakes made by the Department of Education,” Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) said.

Both Republicans and Democrats expressed concern about next school year’s FAFSA period. It’s already been pushed back to December.

“Nothing I’ve seen or heard from federal student aid inspires confidence that the system is fixed,” Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Penn.) said.

Beta testing for the 2025-26 FAFSA is set to start next week.

“They’ve verbally given us promises,” Marisol Cruz Cain, Director of Information Technology and Cybersecurity Team at GAO said. “But we have not seen any documents that involve what the test plans would look like.”

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona is assuring higher education leaders the next FAFSA will be better. In a letter , he wrote the Department is “committed to learning from challenges” with last year’s launch and making improvements.

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