In a letter this week to the U.S. Education Department (ED) on proposed changes to the application colleges use to participate in federal student aid programs (called the E-App), the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) repeated a common concern: participation agreements, recertification and program review procedures are extremely burdensome and should be improved.
AACC further detailed that the current processes are time-consuming, often duplicative and require too much back-and-forth with ED’s Office of Federal Student Aid. The association thanked ED for the proposed changes to automatically accept applications that contain simple updates, rather than subjecting each updated application to a manual review, and to reduce the number of college officials required to provide personal contact information.
AACC offered feedback on a new proposed process for gaining approval to participate in individual Title IV programs and urged the department to maintain a way for colleges to voluntarily opt out of participating in certain Title IV programs (including the Federal Direct Loan Program, TEACH Grants and Federal Work-Study), regardless of whether the institution is eligible to participate.
AACC also asked ED to consider allowing institutions to submit updates, revisions and corrections while an application is under review. Currently, institutions must wait until a review is completed to make these changes, significantly delaying the approval process.
Replying to new priority for grants
AACC also replied to ED’s proposed new priority for grant programs around expanding career pathways and workforce readiness. Each administration sets its own priorities for awarding competitive grants within federal agencies.
The association applauded the proposed priority’s emphasis on supporting early awareness of workforce pathways through secondary and postsecondary activities, aligning workforce development programs at the state and federal level, improving timely workforce data and increasing the number of registered apprentices.
AACC urged ED to thoughtfully apply the priority to discretionary grant programs that are best-positioned and designed to promote workforce education and stronger career pathways, including national-level grants made within the Perkins Career and Technical Education program and Adult Basic Education programs.
