Heidi Alexander: “today, the Senate passed a solution that Senator Murray and I reached to permanently fund historically Black colleges…”

“today, the Senate passed a solution that Senator Murray and I reached to permanently fund historically Black colleges and universities and other minority serving institutions. It is hard to think of a piece of legislation that would have more of a lasting impact on minority students and their families than this bill. This legislation does two things: First, it provides permanent funding--that is fully paid for--for HBCUs and other Minority-Serving Institutions attended by over 2 million minority students. Second, after 5 years of bipartisan effort, it greatly simplifies the free application for Federal student aid--the FAFSA--that 20 million families, including 8 million minority students, fill out every year to qualify for Federal student aid. This bipartition provision--which was sponsored by Senators Murray, Whitehouse, and Gardner when it passed the Senate by unanimous consent last December--stops families from having to give their same tax information to the Federal Government twice--first to the IRS, then again to the Department of Education. Students give permission to the IRS and the Department of Education to share tax return data, which eliminates up to 22 questions on the FAFSA with one click. It should eliminate most of the so-called verification process, which is a bureaucratic nightmare that 5.5 million students go through annually to make sure the information they gave to the Department of Education is exactly the same as they gave to the IRS.…”