Bureaucracy

The United States Department of Education works to help students attending college with a variety of loans and grants by using the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The FAFSA provides an estimate of how much a family is expected contribute towards the costs of attending college for a given year. This estimate, known as the Estimated Family Contribution (EFC), determines a student’s eligibility for grants and loans issued by the federal government. These include Pell grants, Stafford loans, PLUS loans, and more.

The FAFSA does not take into account individual debts held by families, and leaves some families without enough money to pay the difference. After exhausting all of the federal loans that are available, families often take out private loans in order to make ends meet. Private loans are generally less forgiving than federal loans and have higher interest rates.

The Department of Education works closely with the President in order to effectively carry out student loan reform. For example, the website offers information on the President’s Income Based Repayment program: https://studentaid.ed.gov/repay-loans/understand/plans/income-based