Trying to receive financial aid for college? How do you feel when completing the ten page FAFSA (Free Application for Financial Student Aid) form? Could reducing it to two questions improve the process? Senators Alexander (TN) and Bennett (CO) believe more students could pursue a college education if the form were simplified. They want to reduce FAFSA to a postcard that asks two questions: What is your family size? And, what was your household income two years ago? Using earlier tax data – and a simple “look up” table – would let students know how much financial aid they are eligible for when they start looking at colleges.

The Financial Aid Simplification and Transparency (FAST) Act proposes to streamline federal grant and loan programs by combining two federal grant programs into one Pell grant program and reducing the six different federal loan programs into three: one undergraduate loan program, one…