Arne Duncan

Last week, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appeared before the White House Press Corps to discuss some of the Obama administration's changes to the FAFSA form, explaining that the present form was complicated enough to drive away many families who would have otherwise sent their children to college.

With simplification being the goal, Duncan enumerated the changes that the Dept. of Education can make now, without congressional approval.

As Duncan laid out the plan Wednesday, the Education Department will, right now, make several changes that do not require Congressional approval. This summer, the department will take advantage of existing technology on the Web-based FAFSA to allow married or independent students to skip questions about their parents, among others. In January, the department will stop requiring students with low incomes to answer questions about their financial assets, and only returning students will be asked about prior drug convictions, since the question does not affect first-year students. Department officials said they would work closely with state officials to set up the electronic form to "make it easier to answer questions that the states need but the federal government does not."

January will also mark the start of the department's test of a system to allow students who apply for aid for the spring 2010 semester to retrieve relevant tax information from the Internal Revenue Service to help them complete the online FAFSA. "When you're online filling out the FAFSA, there'll be a button that says, 'Want to go get your IRS data?' " said Shulman of the IRS.

Education Department officials say that the test will see whether the process of using IRS data to populate the FAFSA is workable, and that by focusing on students applying in the spring, they can postpone the thorny question of whether to use year-old tax data -- which creates potential challenges for financial aid officers and students alike when families' financial fortunes change significantly. "We haven't yet made the decision about whether to go to 'prior prior year,' " said Robert Shireman, deputy under secretary of education. "This will allow us to give the system a shot, and look at the prior prior year question later." About half of financial aid applicants -- those who attend college in the spring and many community college and other students who apply for aid late in the summer, right before the fall semester starts -- should be able to populate their FAFSA forms with current year data from the IRS, he said.

The thornier issues arise with the proposed changes that can't be made without congressional approval.

Department officials said they would ask Congress to eliminate a total of 29 questions about students' and families' finances that are not on the federal tax form. Several of those relate to families' assets ("As of today, what is the net worth of your (and spouse’s) investments, including real estate (not your home)?"), and eliminating the consideration of assets for most students by abandoning those questions would be among the more controversial steps the Obama plan calls for.

Most states and many private colleges now use the federal needs analysis methodology to decide how to allocate their own financial aid. While a panel of experts convened by the College Board last year called for determining financial need based solely on families' adjusted gross income and number of dependents, some college officials worry that states and colleges might stop using the FAFSA -- and require students to fill out other forms to apply for state or institutional aid -- if they no longer believe the federal form gives them sufficient information on which to base their decisions.

I like that the Obama administration is taking aim at a major obstacle to young Americans, otherwise eligible, receiving college educations. From my own experience, the FAFSA was a yearly headache for my dad and me every February.

I'm wondering if these proposed solutions are missing opportunities to bring community members' skills into the mix. A comment on the insidehighered.com story to which I linked earlier proposed that financial aid professionals be asked to provide pro-bono service at regularly scheduled "FAFSA Completion Night Programs." Those choosing to give back and participate would then be recognized in their community for their work. The idea, according to the commenter, would be to build off these programs and create events that would lead to more proactive financial preparations for college years ahead of time. With Obama's community organizing background and past articulation of the importance of citizenship and giving back, I think this approach would only make sense.

Now this is an education secretary I can believe in.

On Wednesday, Arne Duncan took his message to a club in Washington, appearing with singer-songwriter Neko Case, who introduced him. Check it out for yourself:

President Obama has encouraged us a few times now to view our economic challenges as opportunities. In the midst of our financial crisis, our communities now have opportunities to revisit how we do things in the name of conserving resources while making our nation stronger. Sec. of Education Arne Duncan appeared on the Charlie Rose show a couple weeks ago discussing how rethinking the use of our nation's schools could open up several doors to our communities.

Secretary Duncan outlines his vision of schools serving as "community centers," in which facilities are not limited to educating children during the day, but also holding functions at night to improve the community. Duncan points out that schools are one institution in our society that has a plethora of resources -- "classrooms, computer labs, libraries, gyms, and pools" -- and they're all the taxpayers'. Duncan also sees this effort not falling solely on educators' plates, but instead being pursued by a partnership of school officials and non-profits, especially the YMCAs and Boys and Girls Clubs. School officials would have class from 9-3 (or thereabouts, depending on the school system's schedule), with the partnership of non-profits coming in and running "academic, social, enrichment, and even medical services" from 3-9.

There's no doubt that Duncan thinks outside the box. But what I really like is his focus toward the end of the clip on the foundational aspects of education and ensuring that we provide enough there to combat negative forces outside of the classroom affecting the students' ability to learn. In the clip above, Duncan explains that, while working in Chicago, he made sure that students had breakfast, lunch, and dinner, because if they're hungry, it's hard to concentrate in the classroom. Duncan discusses giving out tens of thousands of glasses each year to ensure that students can see the blackboard. And he also made sure that students had a safe atmosphere in which they could learn, otherwise they might be thinking about their walk home instead of their education. Talk about a student-centered approach...

Duncan seems determined to do everything he can to deeply invest in our future. But he's also thinking big, observing that schools can form the backbone of our community life. There's no reason for schools to sit empty from 4:00 to 9:00, while youth are going home, eating high fructose corn syrup in bulk amounts, and watching television. Duncan's plan to create that seamless array of resources for students and families could have a huge impact on our public life. Opening the doors of these schools, filling them with collaborative non-profit organizations dedicated to improving various facets of the community, opens doors for our communities. Duncan's plan is a great example of taking advantage of our present economic situation, turning it into an opportunity for the future.

(h/t to Peter Levine.)

One of the most-discussed campaign issues is higher education and its soaring cost. The possibilities for campaign rhetoric are numerous; one can discuss the resulting squeeze on middle-class families and their budgets, the inability for institutions to provide an innovative education, or even the skyrocketing interest rates on student loans and sound fairly competent. But unfortunately, developing talking points for any/all of these problems is all the candidates will do.

Arthur Levine, president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation (and former president of the Teachers College, Columbia University), has suggested that, given the recent developments with the economy, the most influential policymakers and decision-makers should attend a higher education summit that picks apart these problems and actually solves them in the form of a contract.

President Obama could convene a summit, bringing together Washington, the states, and colleges and universities to triage the higher education goals he championed during the campaign — and to focus particularly on access and affordability, which are of greatest concern to the largest numbers of ordinary Americans.

Attendees for the summit should represent the full breadth of higher education — two-year and four-year and doctoral institutions, state-supported and independent — as well as the executive and legislative branches of the federal government and the key state education leaders, including governors and state higher education officers. That said, this has to be a select, influential group with the power to effect real change — no more than five per side.

These leaders should examine the real resources available to higher education, not as fat juicy pork but as basic sustenance for the key issues: access and affordability, research, economic development, and global competitiveness. The summit should be structured in three parts: first, a one-day gathering to identify key issues and priorities; second, a one-month period for a staff working group to develop and provide options; and third, a final one- or two-day meeting to reach conclusions.

The outcome of this gathering must go beyond rhetoric. The three sectors must agree to a practical, achievable contract that outlines specific roles for each sector. And all this should happen in the first 100 days of the Obama administration, before revenues are otherwise committed.

I like Levine's proposal, mainly due to the contract at the end. Levine sets up the excerpt I provided above with a detailed explanation of the depressing education policy-making cycle that usually happens in politics. Long story short: the buck gets pushed from the federal government to the state government, from the state government to institutions, and then the institutions to students. The common good, the country, and all of the stakeholders lose.

The contract allows each constituency to take ownership of the provisions and encourages the quick passage of policy and allocation of revenues that we need in order to take serious steps toward solving the gargantuan problem with higher education in our country.

Yes, these big issues are tough to solve, and perhaps there could be a heated conversation or two (or plenty more than that) during these meetings, but this is a much better formula for success than playing the blame game. Kudos to Levine for putting forth an idea that seems to mesh with Obama's philosophy. Let's see if President-elect Obama and Secretary of Education-designate Arne Duncan are paying attention.