Ranking Member Cassidy, Chairwoman Foxx, Colleagues Demand Update on OIG Investigation into Biden’s Botched FAFSA Rollout, Amid Concerns of Further FAFSA Delays
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, along with U.S. Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC), chairwoman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, urged the Department of Education (DeptEd) Office of Inspector General (OIG) to provide an update on its investigation into the Biden administration’s botched implementation of this year’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) program.
Cassidy and Foxx are joined by U.S. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), ranking member of the Senate Labor-HHS Subcommittee, along with U.S. Representative Robert B. Aderholt (R-AL), chair of the House Labor-HHS Subcommittee. The lawmakers also asked OIG to review the status of next year’s FAFSA amid serious bipartisan concerns it will not be ready by October.
“We strongly urge you to continue to focus on this critical matter and to share your findings with Congress and the American people,” wrote the lawmakers. “Students and families who need federal student aid to access postsecondary education deserve our best efforts to ensure that the Department successfully executes the laws enacted by Congress to make student aid easily accessible.”
Despite the FAFSA form normally being ready in October, the Biden administration was delayed for months in getting this year’s FAFSA fully operational. This prevented colleges from creating financial aid offers, effectively forcing students and families to make this life-changing decision with zero information about their eligibility for financial aid.
While Secretary Miguel Cardona has made multiple commitments to Congress that next year’s FAFSA is “expected” to be ready by October 1, Republicans and Democrats have expressed concerns to DeptEd that it is again falling behind on its FAFSA responsibilities and refusing to be transparent in its communication.
Earlier this week, Cassidy introduced bicameral legislation requiring DeptEd to make FAFSA available by October 1. Under Foxx’s leadership, the House Education and the Workforce Committee approved the companion bill sponsored by U.S. Representative Erin Houchin (R-IN) in a bipartisan vote of 34 to 6 on Wednesday.
Cassidy and Foxx previously blasted the Biden administration for illegally obstructing the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) investigation into FAFSA, failing to provide requested information as required by federal law.
Read the full letter here or below.
Dear Inspector General Bruce:
We understand that your office is conducting oversight of the Department of Education’s (Department) implementation of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Your oversight is necessary and consistent with the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) mandate “to conduct, supervise, and coordinate audits and investigations relating to the programs and operations of the [Department].”1 We strongly urge you to continue to focus on this critical matter and to share your findings with Congress and the American people. Students and families who need federal student aid to access postsecondary education deserve our best efforts to ensure that the Department successfully executes the laws enacted by Congress to make student aid easily accessible.
Efforts to implement the revised FAFSA have faced a series of setbacks. During the first implementation year of FAFSA simplification, errors in the 2024-2025 application presented usability issues for students, delayed ordinary timelines by months, and required the Department to reprocess millions of forms. Enrollment for the upcoming 2024-2025 school year has been frustrating and disappointing for students and institutions. Experts currently expect a 10 percent drop in FAFSA applications filed by 2024 graduating high school seniors.2
On May 7, 2024, we and other Senators and House members (not signatories today) sent Secretary Miguel Cardona (Secretary) a letter to express our concerns about the Department’s ongoing challenges to implement the new FAFSA.3 We requested the Secretary provide us full transparency into the planned launch of FAFSA for the 2025-2026 year. While the Department has not provided us transparency into the launch, on May 30 the Secretary did announce an internal review of the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA).4 The announcement stated the Department would solicit input from your office to address “ongoing management and operational challenges.”5 We urge you to complete the review the Secretary requested and fully disclose your findings.
The letter to Secretary Cardona also requested weekly updates from the Department on its timeline, planned consumer testing, and “fixes” for the launch of the 2025-2026 FAFSA.6 However, on June 7, 2024, the Department missed the first deadline we established for the updates.7 In addition, the Department decided not to publish a draft FAFSA for comment, which typically occurs in the preceding February or March. Instead, the Department has chosen to issue a Request for Information on the 2025-2026 FAFSA at a non-specific future date “this summer,” leaving little time to incorporate changes from the field.8
Congress urgently requests the OIG complete its evaluation of the status of the development of the 2025-2026 FAFSA and make recommendations to the Department for correcting any deficiencies found in its FAFSA development and launch processes. The OIG should complete: (1) a quick and thorough evaluation of the Department’s Student Aid and Borrower Eligibility Reform (SABER) initiative, addressing the Department’s implementation of the Future Act and the FAFSA Simplification Act;9 and (2) full written reports on how any management challenges within the Department, or FSA systems’ challenges, contributed to the botched rollout of the 2024-2025 FAFSA.
In addition, we ask that you keep us fully and timely informed of all related problems and deficiencies related to the FAFSA application and FAFSA simplification process and provide the following to us no later than July 25, 2024:
- A briefing regarding the OIG’s ability to evaluate the status of the development process for the 2025-2026 FAFSA;
- The OIG’s timeline for completing its evaluation and report on the SABER initiative; and
- The OIG’s timeline for evaluating management challenges at the Department and FSA systems’ issues.
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