Captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2008 lets turn our attention to one of the important issues, and it is this. 20 Million Students and their families are in the middle of what has to be the strangest first semester of college in at least a century. Almost everything has changed for students except one thing, students still have to answer 108 questions on the dreaded fafsa form, federal aid application for pell grants and Student Loans to help go to college. For years now ive carried around the fafsa as a prop to make the case for simplifying it, but its no joke, especially this year. Many students are questioning their investment in a College Education at a time when many classes are only offering online courses, many of low income students who would benefit most economically from college long term are putting it off altogether. There was an 8 drop in the number of black undergraduate students enrolled in summer sessions compared with last summers enrollment according to the National Student clearinghouse Research Center. The president of Southwest Tennessee Community College in memphis, mostly my norty college, told me three years ago he loses 1500 student as semester because of the complexity of filling out the fafsa. Imagine how much less motivated anyone is to fill out those fafsa questions this year. This is a form difficult for students homeless, in foster care, living with grandparents. Hard for them to complete it. Homeless student have to prove theyre homeless. Foster care students may not have access to all the information required to complete the fafsa and students living with their grand parents often are still dependentes on their parents and obtaining information from their parents may be difficult. These are the very students federal aid is meant to help and the kind of economy a College Education proves its value. Its not that i and others havent been trying to fix the fafsa. When four of todays witnesses appear before this committee almost seven years ago, they universally agreed that fafsa was an obstacle to students attending college. They said we could award pell grants using just two simple variables, family size and income. Senator bentley and i had the same reaction, if theres that much agreement, why dont we just do it. For bennett and i set out to turn the lengthy fafsa into a postcard. The result was the fast act. Senator murray and i then worked with the Obama Administration to allow students to fill out the fafsa using their Tax Information from two years before they enroll in college instead of one so they could file in the fall, rather than having to wait until spring. The Trump Administration has created an app so students and families can files the fafsa on their cell phones or tablets. The fewer act which senator murray and i sponsored which became law last year reduced the fafsa by up to 22 questions and eliminated the bureaucratic nightmare created by requiring students to give the federal government the same information twice and then to try to catch them in making a mistake. Stopping the federal government from asking for your Tax Information twice, once for the irs and then once for the education department, also helps prevent most applicants from being selected by the department of education for Income Verification caused by mistakes which many parents and counselors have told me is a bigger burden than filling out the 108 questions in the first place. We have a piece of legislation that would finish the job. It has broad bipartisan support. Its based on recommendations that four of todays witnesses gave us nearly seven years ago at a hearing before this committee. Heres what i mean when i say its time to finish the fafsa. The Bipartisan Legislation senator jones and i have proposed would reduce the total questions on the fafsa from 108 to no more than 33. Let me give you an example of the difference if i can hold it up. This is the 108 questions, this is the 33 question form that would make the difference if we could enact it this year. Thats the first thing it would do. Second, it would end the department of educations lengthy Financial Data verification process by removing unnecessary financial questions and instead using only the Financial Data that will come from the irs starting in 2023 2024 school year a change congress made last year and passed and i mentioned. Three, it will continue to collect and provide states and colleges the information they need to determine state and institutional aid. The first legislation is senator bennett and i worked on caused some problems for states and weve worked with states and counselors to address those problems. Four, it would create a simple Grant Eligibility formula so that middle and High School Students and anyone interested in applying for aid will know how much pell grant money they have to go to college. Five, it does something else, something senator murray has been working on makes it easier for students that are homeless or in the foster system or students not in touch with their parents. Our bill allows these students to apply for aid as independent students, making the application process for them much simpler. As a result of these changes, congress would immediately enable more students to receive pell grants and many more to receive the maximum pell grant. An additional 420,000 students would qualify for pell grants each year if this bill passed according to the congressional budget office. An additional 1. 6 Million Students would qualify to receive the maximum pell grant award each year. Students from single parent families would benefit more from pell grants because the formula would account for the greatest needs of these families and in addition to senator murray, much of this work has been done by senator bennett, senator jones, as a member of this committee, and others who have helped with the work include senator booker, senator burr of this committee, senator collins of this committee, senator king, and former senator isakson. During these last several years, weve worked carefully with various organizations to make sure our proposals dont cause any unexpected problems and as a result, we have the support of the National Association for student aid administrators, the National CollegeAttainment Network, the state Higher Education executive officers organization, schoolhouse connections, National Association of state student grant aid programs, each of the regional Higher Education compacts. In conclusion, after nearly seven years of work on these issues, it all boils down to this. It makes no sense to make it this complicated to apply for federal aid for college. It makes no sense to discourage the very Students Congress wants to encourage to attend college and benefit from federal Financial Aid. In tennessee former governor hasson created the tennessee promise and reconnect programs to provide two years of free Community College to any ten seen without a degree. All they have to do is fill out the fafsa yuts tets the governod me the fafsa is the single biggest barrier to help more to take advantage of two free years of Higher Education. The right time to finish the job is now, when College Students and families are under pressure, facing so much uncertainty, especially homeless students, students in foster care and those living with grandparents. I hope we can pass Bipartisan Legislation to do so by the end of this year. I will now recognize senator murray for her opening statement. Well, mr. Chairman, first of all, let me just say thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today and, mr. Chairman, thank you for your very kind opening remarks about me. I appreciate it so much. If im not mistaken this is your last scheduled education hearing as Health Chairman so i will say today, thank you for all your contributions about Higher Education. As i said earlier this week, as a former governor, president of the university of tennessee, secretary of education, of this committee and our entire country, everyone has really benefited from your expertise and your experience and i will say what i said again tuesday, we all owe you a debt of gratitude and really, really appreciate all your work. You know, through our time together on health, weve been able to pass the future act, to permanently fund our nations hbcus, we he updated our nations career and Technical Education programs and worked together with senator to restore the yearround pell grant, to name a few, just in Higher Education. Again, thank you so much for all of your contributions and, of course, today we are discussing an issue near and dear to your heart where you already have an impressive legacy, that is fafsa simplification. Im proud of the steps we have taken to improve the fafsa for students across the country. From our work in 2015 with the Obama Administration to allow students to fill out the fafsa earlier and with more accurate Financial Information, to our work last year on the future act which will streamline the process to help students securely use the Tax Information already on file with the federal government, this is an issue where we have been able to find Common Ground and get things done. Mr. Chairman, your leadership on this issue has already made the fafsa much easier to navigate, but, of course, we both agree there is more work to be done. The ongoing pandemic is also having a profound Economic Impact on families across the country and we are already seeing students are facing unprecedented struggles when it comes to paying for college. The fafsa must be a tool that expands access to higher ededation, not a barrier that prevents students to get the Financial Aid they need to go to college. We need to build on the valuable work to make fafsa easier to navigate making sure students experiencing homelessness, in foster care and students whose families have low incomes can successfully get access to the pell grants available to them because right now, its students that need our help the most who are facing the biggest burdens in getting Financial Aid. Those students dont often have the resources to navigate the college Financial Aid process and they struggle without access to College Counselors or other support and many times without dependable internet or access to a computer. So instead of forcing them to jump through unnecessary hoops, we need to do everything we can to make their lives easier, like making the verification process where student have to confirm information on the fafsa for their schools less of a burden, especially for families with low incomes. Determining pell grants based on the federal Poverty Level, so more students and families can easily know the amount of help they will receive and fully implementing the future act as soon as possible. We cant stop there by the way. We need to get serious about connecting students to more than just pell grants and must work to ensure that students dont miss out on state and federal support programs they may be eligible for that could help them afford food and housing and child care. The fafsa is just the beginning of the Financial Aid process we need to make easier for students and families, so im glad to keep working with you, mr. Chairman, to get this right, but while simplifying fafsa is important i dont have to tell anyone here that covid crisis is top of mind for students and families and educators. We just kicked off an Unprecedented School year. There have been over 88,000 cases of coronavirus on College Campuses and 60 deaths and these outbreaks have led many colleges to abruptly switch to remote classes and force students to leave campus with little warning. Im hearing truly heartbreaking stories from College Students back in my home state of washington about the turmoil they are experiencing. So the Senate Also Needs to get to work negotiating a covid relief package to make sure colleges can deliver a quality education for their students and implement Public Health protocols and provide emergency Financial Aid to students who are struggling to afford the food and housing and child care and technology that they now need to have during this crisis. So i want you to know im going to keep pushing to start bipartisan negotiations on this relief package, but for now, i again want to thank our witnesses for being here and thanks again to chairman alexander. I know we dont always agree, but what i do know is that even when we disagree, weve always been able to listen to each other and quite often find things we can agree on that helps the people were here to serve. Thats what weve been able to do with the fafsa simplification in the past and i hope even in the few weeks you have remaining this year, that we can build on that work to make much needed progress on the many critical challenges in front of us so thank you, again, mr. Chairman. Thank you so much, senator murray. Senator baker told me one time that the key to being an effective senator was to become an eloquent listener. Absolutely. Absolutely. You do pretty well at that and i try to as well. Welcome our witnesses today. Our first witness is dr. Bridget terry long the dean and professor of education in economics at the Harvard Graduate School of education. Dr. Long is an economist who focuses on the transition from high school to Higher Education and beyond. Her Research Examines the impact of factors of affordability and academic preparation on College Student outcomes appointed to the National Board for Education Sciences at the u. S. Department of education where she served as vice chair and chair. She holds a ph. D. In master degree from the Harvard University department of economics and bachelor degree in economics from princeton. Our second witness is dr. Kim miss kim cook, executive director of the National CollegeAttainment Network. Miss cook has worked in the Higher Education and College Access field for her entire professional career including an undergraduate admissions in Financial Aid and last Dollar Scholarship Program and as executive director of nca since 2008. She holds master degree in Public Administration from pace university, bachelors degree from american university. Our third witness is miss rachel feldman, associate provost and director of scholarships and Financial Aid at the university of North Carolina at chapel hill. She served as director of Financial Aid at the university of california berkeley in this role she developed and implemented a peer led Financial Wellness initiative for undergraduate and graduate students and cofounded and coled the university of california Financial AidLeadership Institute and doechlds and implemented uc berkeley middle class access plan and currently serves on the leadership capacity on several Financial Aid advocacy boards. Our fourth witness dr. Judith Scott Clayton associate professor of economics and education at Teachers CollegeColumbia University and directs the Economics Program and dr. Clayton is a Faculty Research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and Senior Research scholar at the Co