Senator Murray Explains How Financial Aid Reforms She Negotiated--Going Live by End-of-Year--Will Mean Fewer Headaches Over Paperwork, More Aid to WA Students

Press Conference

"Thank you all for joining this call about something very personal to me.

My siblings and I were all able to go to college thanks to federal student aid programs.

Seven kids, from a family that was struggling to make ends meet--but every one of us was able to afford college, and every one of us has been able to give back to our communities in a big way because our country invested in us.

And I want to make sure kids today have that same opportunity we did to pursue a higher education.

Today, one of the first steps many kids take to make that dream a reality is filling out the FAFSA.

Now, there is no reason for that to be a huge headache.

But for years, a complicated, and cumbersome financial aid process has turned what should be a first step on the path to a higher education into the first stumbling block for too many students.

Unfortunately, this has been especially clear in Washington state where FAFSA completion rates are well below the national average. Less than half of our seniors have completed the FAFSA in recent years!

That's a big red flag for our student aid system.

It's not just that our FAFSA process is working poorly--it's practically missing the whole point!

The FAFSA must be a tool that expands access to higher education, not a barrier that prevents qualified students from getting the financial aid they need to go to college.

We have to be opening the doors to higher education as wide as we can.

That's why I'm proud to have led the negotiations to pass into law the FAFSA Simplification Act which simplifies the FAFSA form significantly, and expands eligibility so that many more students get more aid.

While I wish it could have been rolled out sooner, I am really glad the reforms I fought to secure are getting implemented--and I am going to be watching closely to make sure this goes smoothly, and we are making life better for students.

Some of the changes I fought hard to get done have already taken effect for this current cycle--including restoring Pell Grant eligibility for students who are incarcerated, who have been defrauded by colleges, and who have drug-related offenses.

I'm glad these students are able to access aid and begin and continue their education.

And now, the rest of the reforms I negotiated are starting to take effect too.

The new, simple, streamlined FASFA will be available by the end of the year.

This is a big step forward.

In addition to simplifying the process, it will also update the financial aid formula to link family size and the federal poverty level.

As someone who came from a big family that hit hard times, that was especially important to me!

These are some straightforward changes, but they are going to make a huge difference for students.

They will mean fewer headaches over paperwork and more aid reaching more people.

With the new FAFSA, a student who started their application when this call began, could even be done before it's over!

In some cases, applicants will go from having to answer over a hundred possible questions, to fewer than twenty.

Someone experiencing homelessness--which is about three hundred thousand students--will be able to complete the form even if they can't get information from their parents.

And thanks to the improved calculations, six hundred thousand students will be newly eligible for Pell Grants, and one and a half million more students will be eligible for the maximum Pell award.

In Washington state, that is going to mean: nearly fifteen thousand new students now eligible for Pell Grants and nearly twenty-four thousand more students who can get the maximum amount.

Now, we have a lot of work left ahead to make higher education truly accessible, affordable, and equitable.

I'm going to keep fighting to finish doubling the Pell Grant, deliver debt relief for students, establish tuition-free community college, make the student loan system work better, and much more.

But this overhaul is the most significant in decades.

And it happened because I was able to sit down with my then counterpart, Republican Senator Lamar Alexander, to understand where we both agreed we could make straightforward, but important, changes in policy to make a real difference for students and families applying for aid.

Now, keeping with the spirit of simplifying FASFA, you can really sum up what this means for students in four simple words: Less paperwork, more help.

That's it.

But I know you all want more details on this too, and I'm excited to have an expert here who can shed even more light on these changes, and how they are going to make life easier for students.

So I'll go ahead now and turn it over to Becky Thompson, the Director of Student Financial Assistance at the Washington Student Achievement Council."

Source