Education Department sparks new GOP anger as Cardona pivots on financial aid blunder

Republicans already livid with the Biden administration for sinking the college admissions season into turmoil with a bungled financial aid rollout are jabbing Education Secretary Miguel Cardona for trying to spread the blame.

A monthslong delay in the Biden administration’s release of a revamped FAFSA — the form used to determine federal financial aid — and processing submissions has resulted in a nationwide backlog of some 6 million applications. But while the department is starting to send long-awaited financial aid data to colleges, Cardona has been suggesting publicly that some colleges are also at fault because they’re “still not fully prepared” to receive it.

Cardona’s rhetorical shift in front of university leaders and financial aid administrators in the last week has frustrated some. It is also giving Republicans new fodder against the Biden administration — and something else for Democratic lawmakers to answer for — in an election year.

“We are months behind schedule because the Department of Education failed to do its job over the last three years,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, the top Republican on the Senate education committee, told POLITICO in a statement, referring to the 2020 law that directed for simplifying FAFSA. “Secretary Cardona and the Department need to take responsibility and show they are committed to making it right. Attempting to deflect blame onto anyone else is not taking responsibility.”

On Thursday, Cassidy pressed Cardona to testify on Capitol Hill in part to answer for the botched FAFSA release. And higher education groups say the department has only just started delivering all the information they need to start creating financial aid offers to send out to families. The real work on their end is only just beginning.

“Secretary Cardona has been crystal clear — the Department is working tirelessly to ensure every student who qualifies for aid can fill out a FAFSA form with ease and access the aid they need to attain their higher education goals,” an Education Department spokesperson said in a statement. Cardona, they added, is “committed to making sure colleges have the information, tools, and training they need to tackle the significant undertaking of getting aid in the hands of millions of students as quickly as possible.”

The department started distributing Institutional Student Information Records, the electronic records of financial aid data to schools, last week. So far, only about a quarter of the millions of outstanding FAFSAs have been processed and that doesn’t include the paper forms submitted by families who struggled with the online application when the new, buggy system launched.

Cardona, during a virtual student aid training for financial aid administrators on Monday, promised the department would continue to ramp up its delivery of the records, but emphasized that “we need institutions to be ready.”

Once the agency is at full production, it estimates it will take about two weeks for officials to clear the FAFSA backlog.

Yet, Cardona, at the virtual training, said “part of the reason why we’re having [this webinar] is because, based on some of the requests we've received late last week, we believe some schools are still not fully prepared to receive ISIRs.” He said it was “really concerning” that some schools hadn’t set up their Student Aid Internet Gateway mailboxes to receive the financial aid data from the Education Department.

Cardona acknowledged how tough the work of these administrators has been, but also told them on the call that “there are some issues that maybe could have been addressed much earlier.”

But higher education leaders are asking themselves: When?

“We are not here to point the finger directly at anyone — but definitely not at our institutions,” said Emmanual Guillory, senior director of government relations at the American Council on Education, which represents more than 1,700 colleges and universities. “It's pretty obvious that it's not the fault of the institution that there's been a delay in the FAFSA.”

The Education Department also pushed out several software updates since February, including one as late as March 11, according to Karen McCarthy, vice president of public policy and federal relations at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. Schools continue to also navigate long wait times to get help from the Education Department. Some institutions reported that test versions of the student information records sent earlier this month by the department weren’t sufficient to make sure their systems were ready.

The first batch of real ISIRs were pushed out on March 10, and the department’s ramp-up only started this week.

“We are assuming that the secretary doesn't mean to infer that FAFSA delays are due to institutions,” McCarthy said. “Institutions are really moving as quickly as they can. … Financial aid offices are scrambling to get all of the pieces together. … They're trying to do six months of work in a matter of weeks at this point.”

Top Education Republican lawmakers, however, are sure it is an attempt to redirect attention. 

“The blame is all with the Department of Education, come on,” House Education and the Workforce Chair Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican, said in an interview.

Democrats have largely tried to avoid weighing in on the issue. But Rep. Kathy Manning (D-N.C.) a member of the House education committee said she is focused on the ultimate goal of making college more affordable.

“I am sure the secretary is doing the best he can and we ought to be doing the best we can in Congress,” she said in an interview.

“It's March,” Manning said. “So all I can say is we need to get those forms into the hands of families so that they can fill them out and make sure that their kids can decide as quickly as possible where they can afford to go to school.”

Even after schools receive the student financial aid data, which is expected to be completed by the end of the month, it takes time for colleges to review them and send out financial aid offers.

“Even the most on-the-ball, well-resourced aid office is probably looking at about two weeks after they start receiving ISIRs before they start sending out aid offers,” McCarthy said.

This means students might start receiving aid offers from some schools as soon as mid-April. But that still only gives families only about two weeks to make a decision on attending schools with a May 1 commitment deadline, or about a month for others who have pushed their deadlines.

Guillory said while some schools can be faulted for not fully setting up their mailboxes, as of March 1, that was only about 300 schools.

Schools have told ACE, their largest advocacy group, they have a general lack of confidence in the Education Department’s ability to provide them the most accurate information in a timely manner. They’re not confident in the agency’s rollout of the FAFSA and that they will receive these student aid records without errors.

About half of all colleges reported they will be adjusting their May 1 deadline, Guillory said, and another 13 percent have already pushed them back. Despite the accommodations schools are making, processing data and sending out aid packages in a matter of days is an immense undertaking.

“And if you don't do it immediately, now it's your fault,” he said. “That is not a fair place to put the institutions in. We need to look at the issue holistically and stop pointing fingers.”

Dana Nickel contributed to this report.