Heidi Alexander: “we have been working for 5 years, for example, on simplifying the Federal aid form that students fill out to go to…”

“we have been working for 5 years, for example, on simplifying the Federal aid form that students fill out to go to college--5 years. We have bipartisan support for it in the Senate and in the House. We have families who, in my State, will be discouraged from going to college because of this complex form. Why don't we pass it? It is important to fund historically Black colleges; that is true. They have funding for another year. So why don't we add to that the simplifying of the FAFSA form, which, I would imagine, 95 percent of the students in historically Black colleges have to fill out every year? In addition to that, they have this verification process that they go through during which somebody catches them telling the IRS one thing and the Department of Education another so that they jerk their aid. They think that is important. I have the president of a community college in Memphis who tells me he loses 1,500 students a year because of the burdensome nature of the application. Former Governor Bill Haslam, of Tennessee--our State--has the highest percentage of students who fill out the FAFSA, which is the Federal aid form for grants and loans. He says the single biggest impediment toward there being free tuition for 2 years of college in our State is the complex FAFSA. I don't think it is unreasonable to say, while we help students at historically Black colleges, that we help those same students by simplifying their FAFSAs.…”