'FAFSA Fiasco': Shelley Moore Capito Slams Biden Admin's Handling Of Federal Student Loans

6 months ago

During remarks on the Senate floor, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) spoke about the FAFSA program.

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Transcript

00:00 Virginia. Thank you Madam President. Well today is May 1st which is National

00:06 College Decision Day. This is normally such an exciting occasion where students

00:11 in my home state of West Virginia are just and your home states would be

00:15 finalizing those really fun and hard decisions about which college or

00:21 university to attend in the fall. Much to look forward to but this year the

00:26 customary hopefulness has been replaced by anxiety, fear, and apprehension as

00:33 confusions and questions take hold regarding the availability of support

00:37 that is long accompanied one of the most important decisions of our young

00:41 students lives. When it comes to the 2024 FAFSA applications the data from the

00:48 West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission paints a very bleak picture.

00:55 Compared to the same time last year freshmen, this is national statistics,

01:02 freshman FAFSA completion rates are down 35.3 percent. For Pell eligible

01:12 students FAFSA completion rates are down 32 percent. For non-traditional students

01:20 25 and older FAFSA completion rates are down 35 percent. These are national

01:26 figures. The total number of high school students that completed FAFSA is down

01:31 39.6 percent and the total number of high school students who submitted a

01:38 FAFSA is down 31.6 percent. These percentages ring true in my home state

01:47 of West Virginia. Back home because of President Biden's FAFSA fiasco,

01:53 3,643 West Virginia students are left hanging in the balance, severely

01:59 jeopardizing college access and affordability for students in West

02:03 Virginia, many of whom are that first-time college goer in their family.

02:09 This is just another way that President Biden and his administration are

02:14 threatening a form of the American Dream and it's destroying the vision to

02:19 implement a simplified FAFSA process that was intended by Congress. So how did

02:27 we get here? Well this is an interesting statistic here too. FAFSA completion rate

02:33 among West Virginia students age 25 or up. So those are students maybe that took

02:39 a couple days, maybe they were in the military, I mean took a couple years in

02:43 the military in the workforce, they want to go back to school to improve it, down

02:47 35 percent. So how did we get here in December of 2020 when I was here?

02:53 Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act to simplify and improve the process

03:00 of applying for federal student aid. Federal student aid and the FAFSA were

03:06 first authorized in 1992 as a way to provide a critical lifeline for our

03:11 students. In 2020, Congress made this simplification effort a bipartisan

03:16 priority championed by my friend who we miss dearly, Senator Lamar Alexander, a

03:22 former Cabinet Secretary of the Department of Education. But

03:28 unfortunately the administration's implementation of this law has made

03:31 things, has not made things better for students. Instead it's created an

03:36 unmitigated disaster caused by inexcusable failure of leadership from

03:41 the White House and the Department of Education. The deadline to update the

03:46 FAFSA should have come as no surprise. Congress gave the administration an

03:51 extra year. They had three years and we gave them an extra year to complete it.

03:55 Four years. Implementation of this law should have been a top priority for the

04:01 Biden administration. Instead what happened? The political leadership of the

04:07 Department of Ed chose to take time, resources, and personnel to advance the

04:13 administration's priority around canceling student debt. This is proof of

04:18 the administration's blatantly putting politics before our students and that is

04:24 simply indefensible. I've spoken with so many West Virginians in every part of

04:29 this process the past several months who are very angry about the Department of

04:34 Education's misplaced priorities. They feel discouraged about their future

04:39 because of the bungled implementation. This is obviously a huge issue for

04:45 students and their families but it is a tremendous challenge for our colleges

04:50 and universities at the same time. The Department of Education claims that

04:56 there is nothing more important right now, well it is College Decision Day, I

05:00 guess maybe that's correct, than fixing the issues around the FAFSA process. But

05:06 those words have yet to be backed up by much action. While there's no

05:12 guarantee that the administration will get their act together, there are two

05:15 things that are certain. Number one, students deserve better and their

05:20 families. Number two, Senate Republicans will remain committed to holding the

05:26 administration accountable and pushing for a fix to this issue. Back in January

05:32 I joined a bicameral group of congressional Republicans requesting

05:36 the Government Accountability Office investigate the administration's botched

05:41 FAFSA. That was in January. This investigation is now underway and it is

05:47 my hope it will yield answers as to what the failure could be and how similar

05:52 mistakes would be avoided in the future. Additionally, I helped author a formula

05:57 fix to the FAFSA Simplification Act that passed the Senate and became law earlier

06:02 this year. This fix intends to make financial aid more accessible for

06:07 students by streamlining the process and it corrected actions taken by the

06:12 Department of Education in February that would have jeopardized future

06:17 Pell Grant awards for students. Then just yesterday I questioned Secretary

06:23 Cardona of the Department of Ed during our Labor Health and Human Services

06:29 subcommittee hearing. I demanded answers as did many and accountability regarding

06:36 the fiasco with the FAFSA that his department has overseen. To say I was

06:41 underwhelmed by his responses would be an understatement. Literally he said, "Well

06:47 we kind of are changing, we're kind of redoing these, we think we're there. Why

06:53 did you make mistakes? Well we had missed deadlines. Did you not see that coming

06:58 for four years?" I mean just very, very non-specific answers. With the lack of

07:04 action from the Biden administration, West Virginia's Governor Jim Justice

07:09 declared a state of emergency on the matter just yesterday. This order will

07:16 temporarily suspend the requirement for students to complete their

07:20 FAFSA in order to qualify for our state's largest financial aid program.

07:26 Providing needed relief and certainty for our students that they are

07:31 not now receiving from the Department of Ed, at least they'll get some certainty

07:35 from the West Virginia Department of Ed. I hope that in the future the Biden

07:40 administration and their Department of Ed will be singularly focused on

07:43 addressing outstanding issues and ensure that these problems are not present in

07:49 the 25-26 FAFSA cycle. I can assure you that my Senate Republican colleagues and

07:55 I will not stop putting pressure on the Biden administration to do the job

07:59 they're supposed to do and as they have received ample resources from this

08:04 Congress to do so. I remain in constant contact with the West Virginia Higher

08:10 Education Policy Commission to further understand what they are

08:14 seeing and ways that we can help to work out to mitigate the fallout from the

08:19 crisis the Biden administration has manufactured. I commend the efforts from

08:24 my Republican colleagues in the Senate on these issues as well. In particular,

08:28 Senator Joni Ernst, who's going to speak next, and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana who

08:33 have been outspoken on this issue with me as well as many of our other

08:37 colleagues like the ones who are joining me on the floor to speak. We have to

08:42 remain focused on these issues surrounding the FAFSA application

08:46 process and to make sure that vital resources remain available for our

08:50 students during the moments where they need them the most. Delivering

08:55 on what our students deserve which should not be a partisan issue and I'm

09:00 going to go off my former remarks and say quickly when they calculated in late

09:05 in January and February what the what the parameters would be for the aid for

09:12 the student, they determined that some students would be getting more than they

09:17 should and that some students would be getting less than they should. Totally

09:23 unfair. But the department's first response was well we'll let the people

09:28 that are getting more than they should they can just keep this and we'll fix it

09:33 next year. What does that say the taxpayer who's paying for this? I mean

09:38 finally public pressure came to bear and they rescinded and recalculated

09:43 everything. So with that I encourage everybody to recognize this is a real

09:48 problem across our country particularly for our lower-income first-time college

09:53 going students first time ever filling these forms out. It's it's not an easy

09:58 thing anyway and it's daunting challenge to think about how to afford a higher

10:02 education. So with that I welcome my friend from Iowa and her good hard work

10:06 on this and glad to see she's here on the floor to speak about it.

'FAFSA Fiasco': Shelley Moore Capito Slams Biden Admin's Handling Of Federal Student Loans

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