The Biden White House faced questions Thursday about the glitchy rollout of a new federal aid program for students just days after the Department of Education launched it.
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid program was originally slated to go live in October 2023, yet platform bugs and numerous delays pushed the online portal’s soft launch to Saturday.
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“So look, I do want to take a little bit of a step back here and just lay out a little bit of what we’ve been able to do over the weekend,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday when asked about the “hundreds of thousands of American families trying to figure out paying for college” while expecting assistance from the program.
“They initiated the soft launch, the Department of Education, with the goal of ramping up volume over time to monitor the site performance and create a better experience obviously, for students and families, and so this is consistent with us trying to put forward best practices,” Jean-Pierre said. “That’s what you’re seeing here. A better application process will make college more affordable and a reality for more students. That is what this administration fights for every day, and so obviously the Department of Education could speak more specifically on details, but this is part of our best practices. We’re trying to do our best to make this process easier for families and students.”
Jean-Pierre conceded that it will “take a little bit of time” for the Department of Education to sort out all of the bugs with the website but added that “we’re seeing some better improvements.”
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More than 400,000 families have started FAFSA applications since Saturday. The administration had estimated that 17 million would apply for aid within the first year of the program’s launch.
Thursday’s briefing can be seen in full below.
