Two-thirds of students applying for federal student aid appear to be only applying for admission to one school, according to a quarterly data dump by the Department of Education.
The data published this week by the department’s Federal Student Aid Data Center – which tracks things like loan repayment status and use of the various repayment plans offered – for the first time included information on student applications for financial aid.
According to the data, 68 percent of freshmen students filling out the 2014-2015 free application for federal student aid, or FAFSA, listed only one college to which the application should be sent. While that’s down from the 80 percent who recorded just one school in the 2008-2009 school year, the figure is nonetheless troubling for the Obama administration, which has made college access a pillar of its education agenda and has set a goal for the U.S. to have the most college graduates in the world by 2020.
“By focusing on only one school, students run the risk of being turned down for admission or losing out on better financial aid and educational opportunities from another school, with ramifications that can last a lifetime,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said. “That one school might be the right fit, but why take a chance? Why not consider multiple schools and increase your options and opportunities?”
Simplifying the application has been a big priority for the Obama administration. Officials have revamped the online form so families can skip questions not relevant to them, and also made it possible for students and parents to electronically retrieve income information from the IRS when completing the application.
Most recently, in September, the White House announced a plan to allow students and their parents to pull IRS information from prior years in an effort to make the application process even more seamless.
The government provides nearly $130 billion a year in federal student aid, including tuition assistance through the Pell Grant program for low-income students.
The updated data included some good news, however: Students are filing their financial aid forms earlier than they have in previous years. In 2014-2015, 43 percent of applicants filed in the first quarter of the application cycle compared with 37 percent back in 2006-2007.
In addition, enrollment in repayment plans that are pegged to borrowers’ incomes continues to increase. As of September, more than 4.2 million borrowers were enrolled in income-contingent repayment plans, a 50 percent increase from a year earlier and a 147 percent jump from September 2013.
The figures also showed that late payments are down. The rate of payments delinquent for 31 days or more slipped from 24 percent of loan recipients in active repayment on Sept. 30, 2014, to 21.7 percent on Sept. 30, 2015.
But the data also show that the number of federal loan borrowers who are in default has risen, as was pointed out by The Institute for College Access and Success after analyzing the new information.
Those in default rose to 7.6 million in September 2015, compared with 7.1 million a year earlier, while the share of federal loan borrowers with loans in default ticked up from 13 percent to 14 percent. Those figures stand in contrast with recent data from the Education Department showing overall default rates dropped over the last three years.
The quarterly update came just one day after a the House education and oversight committees held a joint hearing on the Office of Federal Student Aid, where witnesses testified about some of the weaknesses within the agency ahead of congressional efforts to overhaul the Higher Education Act.
The office has come under scrutiny lately for a slate of problems, including a lack of communication with borrowers, colleges and universities, and loan servicers; difficulty streamlining student services; and trouble delivering the appropriate amount of aid to eligible Best Education loan on time.
“Our work continues to identify problems in FSA’s oversight of participants in the federal student aid programs, its efforts to identify and reduce improper payments, and its contract management to ensure program integrity and better safeguard taxpayer interests,” said Kathleen Tighe, inspector general for the Department of Education, whose office has been reviewing the effectiveness of federal student aid programs.
However, Ben Miller, the senior director for postsecondary education at the Center for American Progress, noted that the student aid office has also scored some important victories in the last decade, including by accomplishing what he described as a “near-seamless shift” of federal student loan lending from a host of private lenders to the current system, in which the federal government doles out financial aid directly to students.
Source: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/11/20/majority-of-students-apply-to-only-one-college
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