Two U.S. senators stop by campus to discuss financial aid act Friday
Kim Chaudoin | 615.966.6494 |
One of the hottest topics of conversation in higher education is financial aid, with much debate about the student loan crisis and rising cost of college education.
Approximately 22 million students are enrolled in more than 6,000 institutions of higher education in the United States. Last year, more than $102 million in new federal student loans were granted along with Pell grants that totaled $33 billion in federal expenditures.
United States senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Angus King (IND-ME) have proposed acts that will benefit students and their families. On Friday, Oct. 24, the senators invited a panel of educators, parents and students from Middle Tennessee to the Lipscomb campus to participate in a round table discussion of financial aid issues and their proposed legislation to streamline the process for college students. This is the fourth roundtable that Alexander has convened in Tennessee on the subject.
“We are hoping to set up lines of communication between this office and the public to discuss this very important topic,” said Alexander. “This year more than 20 million college students will complete the 108-question, 10-page FAFSA that is required of any student wanting to apply for financial aid. It is required by many states and universities as a first step in getting federal and institutional aid. Sometimes students and their families are too intimidated by the lengthy form to even apply. Our goal is to reform the student aid process and to simplify it. We hope to develop a form that is much shorter and focused on the information that is really needed. Filling out the form wastes time and money.”
Alexander and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) have proposed the Financial Aid Simplification and Transparency (FAST) Act, that they plan on putting before the Senate in November.
The bill proposes to eliminate the FAFSA by reducing the form to a smaller application that would ask two questions, informing families during a student’s junior year the amount of federal grants and loans for which they are eligible, streamlining the federal grant and loan programs by combining and reducing the numbers of those options, restoring year-round Pell grants and flexibility for students to pay at their own pace, discouraging over-borrowing by limiting the amount a student is able to borrow and by simplifying repayment options by creating two plans.
King and Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) are proposing student loan repayment reform in the Repay Act, that proposes to simplify repaying student loans by consolidating many of the benefits of current repayment programs into two plans: a fixed repayment plan, based on a 10-year period, and a single, simplified income-driven repayment option.
“We are trying to get things done and work across the aisle,” said King. “This is a huge issue nationwide and it is an issue that isn’t a partisan issue. It’s a problem. The main issue is that we have students today who are graduating from college with a debt that is equivalent to a mortgage but without a house. It stagnates our economy.”
Also participating in the discussion was alumna Derrica Donelson, who relayed her experience as a student who relied on financial aid, and Tiffany Summers, director of financial aid at Lipscomb University.
“Thank you for including the financial aid community in this discussion,” said Summers in her response to the proposed reforms. “It is necessary to simplify the process. Something does need to be done. But we must also be careful not to, in simplifying the FAFSA, over simplify it to the point that we create the need for other forms.”
Other roundtable participants included Amanda Springer, a counselor at McGavock High School in Nashville; Nicole Dunigan, parent of a high school senior; Nicholas Dunigan, a senior at University School of Nashville; Jerry Faulkner, president of Volunteer State Community College; Leann Eaton, associate director of financial aid at Middle Tennessee State University; and Amy Moore, counselor at Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet School in Nashville.
Alexander anticipates the bills being discussed in Congress in early 2015.