| | | | |  | | By Bianca Quilantan | |  Education Secretary Miguel Cardona's letter comes as some higher education leaders are hesitant to fully trust the FAFSA will be ready by December. | Steven Senne/AP | ‘ALL HANDS ON DECK’ — Education Secretary Miguel Cardona wants higher education leaders to know the federal financial aid form, known as FAFSA, is in far better shape than it was this time last year. — A letter, obtained by POLITICO, outlined efforts the Education Department has taken so far to ensure the application season for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid will be fully functional by its self-imposed Dec. 1 deadline. It includes details of the Office of Federal Student Aid’s modernization efforts, boosting staffing at support call centers by more than 80 percent, conducting beta tests and addressing concerns of families without social security numbers. — “We very much understand the deep frustrations many expressed in the initial, rocky months after the launch of the 2024-25 FAFSA form, which was beset with delays and technical difficulties,” Cardona wrote. “We have put all hands on deck at the Department to make sure we release the 2025-26 FAFSA in a way that reflects industry-standard best practices around technological transformation and responds to the frank feedback and recommendations of our partners.” — The letter comes as some higher education leaders are hesitant to fully trust the FAFSA will be ready by December. It also comes as House Republicans this week are expected to scrutinize the agency at a subcommittee hearing that will unveil new findings from the Government Accountability Office, which could provide more details on why the FAFSA issues happened. — “Missed deadlines, false promises, and students left in limbo – and now the Biden-Harris administration is on track to repeat its mistakes given the 2025-2026 FAFSA is already delayed until at least December,” said Rep. Burgess Owens, who will be leading the hearing, in a statement. He said the hearing was scheduled to ensure that students and families don’t have to go through the same issues this year. — But FSA’s 2025-2026 FAFSA launch is running on schedule, according to documents, with the testing period starting on Oct. 1 and the form being fully available to all students on or before Dec. 1. Steps the department is taking to make sure it keeps its promise include conducting beta tests to identify errors and receive user feedback early on, and conducting regular briefings and planning to put out reports on the progress of the tests. The agency has also added more than 700 new call center agents since January 2024, and acknowledged the challenges mixed-immigration-status families experienced with the form. It said it will keep some procedures from the last cycle in place for now to help with the identity validation process. More from your host. IT’S MONDAY, SEPT. 23. WELCOME TO WEEKLY EDUCATION. Let’s grab coffee. Drop me a line at bquilantan@politico.com. Send tips to my colleagues Rebecca Carballo at rcarballo@politico.com, Mackenzie Wilkes at mwilkes@politico.com and Juan Perez Jr. at jperez@politico.com. And follow us: @Morning_Edu and @POLITICOPro. Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories
| | A POSSIBLE FUNDING DEAL — House Republicans unveiled a stopgap spending bill on Sunday to fund the government through Dec. 20. The bill would avoid a potential government shutdown on Oct. 1, and will not include Republicans’ proposal to require proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. — A House vote on the short-term funding bill is expected by mid-week as Congress races against the Sept. 30 government shutdown deadline. Last week, 14 Republicans joined with most Democrats to tank Speaker Mike Johnson’s initial plan to fund the government for six months, which included the GOP proposal. The House Rules Committee is expected to take up the bill today.
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Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) is comforted by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) during a news conference about the findings in a recent GAO report. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images | ‘WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN ABOUT THEM’ — Rep. Ayanna Pressley, alongside former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Reps. Rosa DeLauro, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Robin Kelly and Ilhan Omar, are urging lawmakers to take up the “Ending PUSHOUT Act,” which would address discipline disparities in schools that adversely affect Black girls. — Pressley, Pelosi and DeLauro requested an investigation from the Government Accountability Office on the issue. The government watchdog found that in every state, Black girls are disciplined at higher rates. Despite making up only 15 percent of all girls in public schools, Black girls received nearly half of all suspensions and expulsions in the 2017-18 school year. — “To put it simply, this damning new report affirms what we've known all along, that Black girls continue to face a crisis of criminalization in our schools,” said Pressley, who became emotional at her press conference. “I don't want to apologize for being emotional because of it,” she said. “To be a Black girl is a very cruel dichotomy. You are, in some ways, hyper visible, which is why you are profiled and criminalized. But you are also hyper-invisible and your pain is delegitimized. And so the reason why I'm emotional is because, one, I'm encouraged, I'm hopeful, and I'm so overwhelmed by the support of my colleagues. But most of all, I just want every Black girl to know that we have not forgotten about them.”
| | | | FIVE MINUTES WITH CARDONA — Your host caught up with Cardona for about five minutes after his remarks at the HBCU Week Conference last week. Here’s what he had to say: — Cardona mentioned in his speech that he had a few HBCU presidents on speed dial, and especially called them up while FAFSA issues were ongoing. “These presidents here — even before FAFSA — we were working with them,” he said. “When we were dealing with affordability issues, reopening issues, FAFSA issues, I had a lot of these presidents that I would call. I would call them on a weekend, and we talked like, ‘OK, what's really happening on the ground?’ Because I want to know what's happening from the perspective of HBCUs. I remember having conversations with larger HBCUs, and I remember having a conversation with the president of an HBCU that had 250 kids. So you know, for me, their perspective really matters.” — We also touched on the decline in enrollment of Black students at institutions like Harvard University and elsewhere. “It's taken our country backwards. When we don't recognize that, if we're not intentional about making sure all of our students have access, then we're failing our whole country,” Cardona said. “The increase in diversity in this country should tell us that we need to make sure that all students have access. So it's not surprising, but it's disappointing.” — And here are the secretary’s thoughts on the courts blocking the administration’s student loan policies: “The courts got it wrong and we're not done fighting,” he said. “Yes, the courts like to block everything that we're doing,” Cardona said. “We get sued, but it's telling me that we're fighting for the right people. The people that are fighting us are people that are protecting the billionaires, right? They're not fighting when we're bailing out airline industries or car industries. They're not fighting when we're bailing out banks. They're fighting when we're bailing out public servants, when we're helping middle class people, when we're helping try to restore faith in higher education, which just motivates me more.”
| | SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE — The Senate Joint Economic Committee is out with a new report that highlights the need to renovate school buildings. The average age of school buildings in the country is about 49 years, and roughly 53 percent have never undergone any major renovations. School upgrades could benefit students’ physical health and academic success, the report argues, and investing in school infrastructure could save schools money and safeguard them against extreme weather events.
| | | | — Thomas Flagg was appointed as the Education Department’s chief information officer, effective Oct. 6. Flagg comes from the Labor Department, where he serves as director of Labor’s Directorate of Business Application Services. — House Speaker Mike Johnson posted a video on X thanking Rep. Virginia Foxx for her leadership as chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee. “For two decades, Dr. Foxx has been a stalwart in the House and a leader on education policy,” he said at her portrait unveiling last week. “While this portrait goes up and your time as chair comes to an end, your influence, your legacy go on.”
| | — Facing deluge of school shooting threats, sheriff pledges to perp walk students: The Washington Post — Can a college class still be diverse?: The New Yorker — S.F. school board plans emergency meeting amid calls for embattled superintendent’s ouster: San Francisco Chronicle | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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