In The New York Times' "Upshot" column on August 21, author Susan Dynarski, professor of education, public policy and economics at the University of Michigan; discusses her research with Judith Scott-Clayton, Assistant Professor in Economics and Education and senior researcher at TC's Community College Research Center (CCRC); and Mark Wiederspan, then of the University of Michigan. They examined detailed data from thousands of college financial aid applications and aid packages, testing how aid would change if questions were eliminated from the Fafsa, the federal student aid form. "Getting rid of the Fafsa could narrow the large gaps in college attendance that persist between the rich and poor in the United States," Dynarski writes.

To read about Scott-Clayton's testimony in June before the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee on college affordability and the FAFSA, go here. In 2007, Scott-Clayton and Dynarski, then at Harvard, proposed a "drastic simplification" of educational grants and tax incentives for undergraduates, by "combining Pell Grants and the Hope and Lifetime Learning tax credits into a single, streamlined grant administered through the Department of Education, using information already collected by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)." Explanation of eligibility could fit on a postcard, they wrote.

LINK: Fafsa Follies: To Gain a Student, Eliminate a Form in the New York Times