GAO: FAFSA Simplification Paid Off

The FAFSA Simplification Act, passed by Congress in 2020, has met its goals, with more students eligible for the Pell Grant than ever before and a larger proportion of those students receiving the maximum award, a new report from the Government Accountability Office shows.

In the 2024–25 academic year, nearly 10 million students were eligible for the Pell Grant. That’s 6 percent more than the year before. Nearly eight million of them were eligible for the max award of $7,395, which is up 31 percent from 2023–24.

The data released Monday also showed that a large portion of the students who benefited from these increases in eligibility and award amounts came from middle to upper-middle-class families. Much of the overall increase in eligibility occurred for students with a household income between $60,001 and $125,000. The number of students from households earning between $40,001 and $80,000 who were eligible for the maximum Pell award doubled.

In addition to expanding access to the Pell Grant, the FAFSA Simplification Act also called for a simpler federal aid application. The rollout of that form was delayed and then faced numerous technical issues and glitches in early 2024. But after two more admissions cycles with the new form, it appears work from the Education Department and its Office of Federal Student Aid has paid off.

Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat and ranking member of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, who requested the GAO report, celebrated its findings.

“In 2020, Congress took decisive action to reform the financial aid process and expand access to higher education for students across the country. Today’s report confirms that those reforms worked,” Scott said in a news release about the report. “I was proud to work with former Senate HELP Committee Chair Lamar Alexander to pass the FAFSA Simplification Act, which was an important first step to expand access for students and families. Congress should continue this work and do more to improve students’ access to Pell Grants.”

The increase in Pell participation has left the grant program short billions of dollars, however, and Congress will likely have to find an additional $17 billion this year to prevent cuts in eligibility.