Heidi Alexander: “I am here this morning to talk about a hearing that we had in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee this…”

“I am here this morning to talk about a hearing that we had in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee this morning that affects 20 million families who have to fill this out every year. This is called the FAFSA. Usually, there is an adjective ahead of it. It is called the ``dreaded'' FAFSA. There are 400,000 Tennessee families who fill it out every year. If you want to go to college and you need a Pell grant or a student loan, you have to fill this out--108 questions. And then after you fill it out, the way it has been working and still works today, you have to send in the information on 22 of the questions to two different agencies: one to the IRS and one to the Education Department. And then they go through an elaborate process to check to see whether you have made any mistake. So let's say you are a homeless student or a student in foster care or you are not able to identify your parents or you are living with your grandparents or any of those people have an aversion to filling out 108-question Federal forms or giving their information to the government twice, then you don't go to college. That is what happens. In Tennessee, we have had a Governor named Bill Haslam in the legislature that said everybody in Tennessee without a degree, that you can have 2 more years of college free, but first you have to fill out this Federal form.…”