WASHINGTON – The federal website StudentAid.gov, which handles student loans and financial aid processes, experienced an extensive outage on Wednesday, revealing vulnerabilities within the U.S. Department of Education as efforts under President Donald Trump aim to significantly reduce the agency’s size.
The outage was notable as thousands of users reported difficulties with the website, particularly in accessing and submitting the FAFSA form crucial for college financial aid nationwide. The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), which supports financial aid professionals, reported numerous user complaints about these technical issues.
Allie Bidwell Arcese, a spokesperson for NASFAA, expressed the organization’s efforts to understand the cause of the outage, noting that no information had been shared by the Education Department. She pointed out that the department’s ability to manage and fix such issues could have been affected by recent staff reductions.
These staffing changes came into effect after widespread cutbacks were seen on Tuesday, with developers and IT staff dedicated to the FAFSA form being heavily impacted. The Education Department, since Trump’s tenure began, has halved its number of employees to around 2,000.
A verified list of layoffs showed over 300 individuals cut from Federal Student Aid, including two dozen from the technology division responsible for the systems that support FAFSA. An insider, choosing to stay anonymous due to potential retribution, confirmed that the entire team handling these systems was laid off, further complicating response efforts to the outage.
Despite still being on the payroll until March 21, the laid-off personnel were restricted in their access to vital communication tools like email, phones, and computers, complicating rectification efforts. During one point of the outage, about 70 people joined a Teams call to investigate the disruption’s cause, a discussion that extended for numerous hours.
By Wednesday night, the website indicated ongoing “Planned Maintenance,” rendering login functionalities inactive. Reports of outages dwindled by late in the night. Education Department spokesperson Madi Biedermann explained that the layoffs did not impact those working on FAFSA or student loan services and insisted the staffing decisions were made meticulously and in compliance with all regulations.
She emphasized that the job cuts were strategic, internally focused measures meant to avoid direct consequences for students and their families.
Nevertheless, the FAFSA form had been a point of contention during former President Joe Biden’s administration, with recurrent technical issues hindering form submissions and financial aid calculations, provoking Republican criticism. Although there were concerns that these issues could deter students from attending college, freshman enrollment at U.S. colleges notably increased compared to the previous year.
**Editor’s note:** A former version of this story incorrectly stated a decrease in freshman enrollment in fall 2024. This was later corrected by the National Student Clearinghouse in January, attributing the mistake to a methodological error. The corrected data showed an increase in freshman enrollment.
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