A authorities investigation into final yr’s rollout of the brand new Free Software for Federal Pupil Help discovered that Schooling Division officers did not correctly take a look at and put together the shape and launched it regardless of indicators that it was not prepared for large launch—an oversight that proved disastrous.
The division’s missteps are detailed in two paperwork from the U.S. Authorities Accountability Workplace, launched this morning. GAO officers will give testimony in regards to the findings at a Home larger schooling subcommittee listening to right this moment.
The division has already delayed the shape’s launch for the 2025–26 utility cycle to December in an effort to find time for testing, which is ready to start subsequent week. GAO officers warned that the following FAFSA is in danger for comparable delays and technical points due to systemic issues within the division and the Workplace of Federal Pupil Help, the company that oversees the FAFSA.
A few of the GAO’s findings have been public data for months. Inside Greater Ed chronicled a lot of them in a wide-ranging investigation revealed in March—together with the truth that FSA didn’t correctly take a look at the brand new type, perform impartial opinions of its processing system or repair a slew of technical errors in a well timed method.
However the findings launched this morning, a part of a long-anticipated report, give a primary glimpse into the bureaucratic failures behind the scenes, each in the course of the overhaul of the shape itself and within the lead-up to its launch. The report additionally accommodates quite a lot of new revelations about FSA’s dealing with of the rollout and officers’ technique for speaking with college students and schools.
For one, the GAO discovered that as early as August 2022, FSA knew, or at the least anticipated, that the 2024–25 FAFSA launch must be delayed. That month, the workplace started retooling its schedule for FAFSA processing, shifting deadlines for contractors from October 2023—the shape’s conventional, and on the time anticipated, launch date—to December, but they waited seven months to announce the delay publicly.
The GAO suggests FSA officers could have been making ready for a risk somewhat than an eventuality, but it surely’s the primary proof that points with the rollout timeline emerged greater than a yr earlier than the launch.
Along with planning errors that waylaid the rollout course of, the report discovered that the division’s communication technique—each for serving to schools perceive the delays and for serving to households navigate the shape—was insufficient.
Of the 5.4 million calls the Schooling Division’s name heart obtained in the course of the first 5 months of the FAFSA rollout, 4 million—or about three-quarters—went unanswered. Based on the report, the division had far fewer staffers working the middle than in the course of the prior yr and answered almost 200,000 fewer calls in the course of the first 5 months of the rollout.
“The decision heart’s failure to satisfy demand grew to become a major bottleneck for college kids and households who struggled to get assist with urgent points,” the report stated. “All 4 name heart contractors failed their buyer satisfaction rating in the course of the first 5 months of the rollout.”
The report additionally discovered that the division failed to tell greater than 500,000 college students of adjustments to their federal assist estimates that resulted from corrections to calculation errors in the course of the utility cycle, main college students to depend on “the wrong estimate … to make selections about which school they might afford.”
These recurring errors—what the GAO report calls “unresolved defects”—that persevered nicely after launch are what really vexed struggling households and turned a problematic launch right into a yearlong debacle that broken public belief within the federal assist system.
The GAO’s findings are in keeping with earlier opinions of the FAFSA launch, which all discovered shortcomings in planning and oversight.
Failures of Foresight
Division officers, together with Schooling Secretary Miguel Cardona, have typically stated Congress is at the least partly accountable for the FAFSA chaos for refusing to allocate elevated funding to the overhaul venture. However whereas the GAO report doesn’t dispel the speculation that further assets would have helped keep away from the preliminary launch delay, it attracts a extra direct connection between the division’s errors and the delays and technical glitches that beset the shape all through the appliance cycle.
The report’s findings all level again to 1 key misstep: that the FSA moved ahead with the rollout whereas many of the underlying processing system’s important capabilities had been unfinished. On the time of the shape’s launch, 18 of the 25 “key necessities” for launch had not been met, together with “the aptitude to find out last assist eligibility and distribute these outcomes to varsities”—which means FSA was conscious they’d doubtless must push again processing months sooner than they introduced to schools. Some monetary assist professionals have stated that delay was much more disruptive than the preliminary launch delay, setting again schools’ timelines for packaging assist affords and forcing many to increase their dedication deadlines.
Actually, the GAO report discovered that faculties weren’t knowledgeable of the delay till the day earlier than processing was supposed to start.
The report is primarily centered on the FSA’s function within the troubled rollout. The company has been on the coronary heart of the fallout: Its chief working officer, Richard Cordray, resigned in April after backlash, and the Schooling Division is at present conducting an inner assessment of the company.
However the GAO discovered that there’s blame to share throughout different Schooling Division workplaces and leaders. The division’s chief info officer, as an example, “didn’t present efficient oversight” of the FAFSA rollout: The CIO workplace initially rated the venture a 3, which represented medium threat, however the workplace didn’t assessment that ranking till June 2024—greater than 5 months after the appliance launched. The CIO’s workplace instructed GAO they didn’t conduct threat assessments for the overhaul as a result of from 2021 to 2024 they had been “revising the division’s associated processes” for assessing threat.
The report steered that prime turnover within the CIO workplace is partly accountable for this oversight. For the reason that FAFSA overhaul started in 2021, there have been six completely different Schooling Division CIOs, in accordance with the report. A “lack of constant management” is considered one of many extra systemic, department-level flaws that the GAO warns may undermine this cycle’s FAFSA launch, which has already been pushed again two months.
“Till the division addresses these weaknesses, it is going to be hampered in its capacity to make wanted enhancements to [the FAFSA processing system],” the report concludes. “This might put the 2025–2026 FAFSA cycle at elevated threat for experiencing additional delays and technical errors.”
Can’t Escape the Previous
The existence of the GAO report itself has made headlines this previous yr: Congressional Republicans requested for the investigation in January after which accused the division of obstructing the assessment.
Democrats have additionally criticized the Biden administration’s dealing with of the venture, which was mandated by Congress.
“Regrettably, the implementation of the legislation has been derailed by a collection of avoidable errors made by the Division of Schooling,” Consultant Frederica Wilson, a Florida Democrat, stated in ready opening remarks forward of Tuesday’s listening to.
Wilson added that she’s been inspired by the division’s progress for the following utility cycle and emphasised the significance of getting this yr’s rollout proper.
That appears to be the place the division’s focus is, too. The division launched its personal inner report Monday, subtitled “A path ahead for the 2025–26 cycle,” by which they stated they had been “dedicated to studying from challenges with [last cycle’s] launch” and outlined plans for testing the shape to make sure it’s “totally practical” upon launching.
However the GAO report’s findings are positive to reignite anger over the division’s dealing with of the brand new type simply as officers are attempting to shift the nationwide dialog towards the longer term. A GAO spokesperson instructed Inside Greater Ed that the workplace continues to be investigating the rollout and reviewing the FAFSA processing system; they anticipate to conclude their work by early subsequent yr.