Simplifying the Application for Student Aid Act
Floor Speech
I rise today in support of H.R. 5528, the Simplifying the Application for Student Aid Act.
Last year, Representative Doggett of Texas and I led a letter to then-Secretary Duncan regarding the importance of prior-prior year FAFSA.
Allowing students to use prior years' tax data means a student can apply for financial aid at the same time they apply for college. This means that students will get information about financial aid, which will help them make their college choice much earlier. This is especially helpful for first-generation and at-risk college students who need an accurate picture of a college's price tag well in advance in order to make their decision.
In September, I was happy to see President Obama take executive action to allow for the use of prior-prior year tax data for students. The bipartisan bill before us would make this executive action permanent and is an important step toward making college more affordable, ensuring future students are afforded the opportunity to use prior year tax data when filling out the FAFSA form.
Additionally, the Simplifying the Application for Student Aid Act will also direct the Department of Education to develop a mobile app for using FAFSA. This will allow millions of Americans who do not have broadband access but do have Internet connectivity on their phones to have access to an electronic version of FAFSA.
Finally, this bill will also encourage the Department of Education to study how the Department of Education can better reach out to students with limited English language proficiency when filling out the FAFSA. These are commonsense reforms which need to be made in order to streamline the process for students applying to college.
While there is a lot more we can do to tackle college affordability, I am pleased we are moving forward with this important, bipartisan legislation today.
I thank the financial aid office at the University of Wisconsin- Madison for first raising this issue to us, and I also thank the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Heck) for his leadership on this issue.
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