The Editorial Board neglected to mention the need to include automatic voter registration on the education welfare postcard application. After all, you need to be registered before you can sell your vote to the government worshipers for a grant from the taxpayers.

An interesting idea. Now if we can only get the editorial board of the Post to see the elegance in a simplified tax system that lets those who actually foot the bill for these wonderful programs see what they’re shelling out, we’ll be getting somewhere.

By the way, if you think the Dept of Education process for applying for student aid is a horror, just wait till the feds take over all your medical care.

Well, I took time to read the 32 pages of the report (there are an additonal 24 pages of footnotes, bibliography and forms) and it mainly points out something that my college students have known for a while - the lag between application and receiving of funding authorization is frustrating at the least and negligent at the worst.

By the way, many of my “kids” are over 30 and have been in the workplace for years. They are seeking to finish college so as to better themselves at their job or go into a whole new profession.

The reason for the complexity of many of the forms is to “prevent fraud”. I might be tempted to point out the similarity here to the voter id laws proposed to “prevent fraud”, but I won’t.

So…it takes somewhere between 1 and 10 hours to complete an application requesting a free handout worth thousands of dollars. Oh, the horror!

Equally absurd is the idea that someone’s “dream” of a college education can be so easily “killed” by such a daunting obstacle as an application form. Sheesh. One can only wonder how such a person would fare in a challenging academic setting.

College is not for everyone, and anyone for whom a financial aid form is too formidable would probably be best served by a vocational school.

The Harvard researchers address Mr. Johnson’s point.

Like him, they pose this question:

“If people are dissuaded from college just because they don’t want to fill out a FAFSA, doesn’t that suggest that they are not really ‘college material’”?

Then they provide this answer (shortened):

“The problem with federal student aid goes far beyond the aggravation of filling out a confusing form. The FAFSA and the aid process highlight costs, obscure benefits, generate uncertainty, and ignore well-understood behavioral phenomena that can limit participation.

“For all of these reasons, complexity is not just an annoyance, but is a serious barrier to efficiency and equity of student aid.

“Theory and empirical evidence both suggest that the federal aid system is poorly designed if the goal is to get more people into college…

“Seemingly minor obstacles put low-income youth off the path to college, much as adults are put off the path to saving by bureaucratic details. A study of high school seniors in Boston found that few low income youth make a deliberate choice to not to go to college. Rather, they miss a key deadline, or incorrectly fill out a form, or fail to take a required class, and thereby fall off the path to college.”

This is not exactly surprising.
The more complex the process- the less likely that they want you to really have the money. If you made it too easy, then more students would get the money. This way you can say you are making the money available to all without really doing it.
This is how the insurance companies make bigger profits- by making you jump through hoops to get benefits that you have coming to you. A lot of people eventually just give up- more profits for them…..
Warrantee services is another one- they don’t make it real easy to get services off of a warrantee. 40% of manufacturers rebates are never claimed because the forms are too long or complicated.
Unfortunately many of the students who need this aid are unaware of it or unable to fill out all of the forms. I’ve helped people with the FAFSA, it is a doozy.

Okay, maybe I am just “smarter than the average bear”, but I have never spent more than 20 minutes completing my FAFSA each year. I spend more time trying to figure out my ed.gov PIN than in filling out the form itself (which is similar to “what is on line xxx of your 1040″ type questions).

Let me correct a mistaken assumption here, that this is “free money”. In many cases these are loans, not “scholarships”. Certain of these are only available to adults returning to college after having been in the workplace, not new teenage college students.

Even when it is “free money” it seldom is enough to give the student a completely “free ride”.

Lastly, my students are working 35 - 50 hours per week, attending class, and oftentimes raising a family — I seriously doubt any of them think they are getting “free money”.