Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced yesterday a new, simpler version of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. For nearly two decades college aid advocates have pushed for a more accessible FAFSA, currently a six-page goliath of a document whose detailed financial questions are a significant hurdle for low-income and middle-class students who need financial aid to attend college. Students will also now be able to auto-fill several of the financial questions with tax data imported online from IRS forms.
It's a welcome change, if for no other reason than that it's not all that often that the federal government manages to simplify something. Duncan also announced expansions in the Pell Grant and Perkins Loan programs, both effective programs that lost funding during the Bush years.
All of these are important accomplishments that will improve college access -- but they are not enough by themselves. Saying that a simplified FAFSA is the solution to the college barrier for low-income students is a bit like saying that simplifying the tax code is the solution to poverty. Low-income students face disadvantages in the college process long before they fill out -- or attempt to fill out -- the FAFSA. Many lack even the most basic information about the process, and often have no counselor or mentor to help them find it. A recent Economic Mobility Project study [PDF] found that at high schools serving low-income students, college counselors have caseloads of over 1,000 students.
Duncan acknowledged the challenges yesterday and made a vague statement about plans for a national information campaign:
We're actually going to launch a campaign starting this fall, the upcoming school year, to make sure that every high school student knows that this is available. And to be clear, what we want is not just to campaign for high school students. … I want to get that message out, again, to 10- and 11- and 12-year-olds, because I worry about those families, where the dream starts to die at an early age.
A simpler FAFSA and expanded grant programs are welcome progress on an oft-ignored issue. But if low-income students aren't informed about their options, have no counselors or mentors to help them, and don't start planning for college early, no amount of aid money is going to create the mass college-going that President Obama envisions. In other words, K-12 education reform and poverty alleviation must be part of the solution.
--Christopher Sopher
