Statecraft When FAFSA Broke, They Called This Guy
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Feb 26, 2026 Jeremy Singer, President of the College Board and former Kaplan and McGraw Hill leader, recounts stepping into federal service to salvage the FAFSA rebuild. He talks about why the redesign failed, how prescriptive laws and fragmented vendors hampered software, the politics around delaying a launch, and what better oversight and procurement would look like.
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FAFSA Redesign Cut Questions But Raised Complexity
- The FAFSA redesign aimed to cut questions from ~100 to ~36 and auto‑import IRS data to reduce completion time from hours to minutes.
- Pulling tax data and adding conditional logic were transformative but greatly increased technical complexity and integration risk.
How Lawmaking Created Confusing FAFSA Pages
- Congressional language was overly prescriptive and hard‑coded UI text, producing confusing pages everyone saw though they applied to tiny groups.
- Example: homelessness language intended for a tiny share ended up confusing many users because the statute forced exact wording in the form.
Multiple Vendors Without A Strong Technical Owner
- Vendor fragmentation plus weak in‑house technical oversight led to poor coordination and opaque status reporting.
- Four vendors worked on disconnected systems, with releases coordinated by email/text rather than shared tooling, causing integration failures.