Letter to the Hon. Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education - Reverse the Rejection of Dozens of Upward Bound Applications over Minor Formatting Issues

Letter

Dear Secretary DeVos:

As a follow up to our previous letter regarding applications for the fiscal year (FY) 2017 Upward Bound Program competition that were recently rejected due to formatting concerns, we are writing to bring to your personal attention language included in the Explanatory Statement on H.R. 244, the 2017 Consolidated Appropriations Act, that addresses this issue. Specifically, the Explanatory Statement expresses "concern that the Department has rejected and made ineligible for review several fiscal year 2017 grant applications based on minor formatting issues." Furthermore, it "strongly encourage[s] the Department to provide flexibility to such applications by permitting submission of a corrected application." H.R. 244 was signed into law by the President on May 5, 2017.

As we noted before, the Notice Inviting Applications for the FY 2017 Upward Bound Program competition included arbitrary formatting criteria not mandated by Congress. The Explanatory Statement accompanying the FY 2017 Consolidated Appropriations Act is a clear, strong statement from Congress that the Department of Education should provide recourse for this year's applicants to correct minor, unintentional deviations from the arbitrary formatting criteria. We strongly encourage you to heed this explicit direction from Congress.

While we appreciate your decision to issue a new Department-wide policy that prevents program offices from rejecting future grant applications based on simple formatting issues, that does not solve the current problem. You are right to observe that needless red tape should not interfere with helping students. That very red tape currently threatens the futures of thousands of low-income high school students, many of whom would be the first in their families to attend college. We urge you to use all of the discretion at your disposal to reverse expeditiously the decision to reject applications for the FY 2017 Upward Bound competition based on minor formatting issues and to provide flexibility to applicants. If this decision is not reversed, the Department risks, over the next five years, denying thousands of disadvantaged high school students the promise of a higher education.

Sincerely,

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