Washington (AP) – A federal website for student loans and financial aid was suspended for hours on Wednesday, highlighting the risks It will rapidly interfere with the Ministry of EducationAs President Donald Trump We aim to dismantle the agency.
Hundreds of users reported FAFSA outages Down detector Starting from noon on Wednesday, they say they are struggling to complete the forms needed for financial aid at universities around the country. The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, a group of people dealing with the College’s Financial Aid Award, said it received reports that users have experienced technical issues and are struggling to complete them. Fafsa.
“NASFAA has made clear why the form is down and when the issue will be resolved, but the staff cuts yesterday can complicate troubleshooting,” the group said in X.
Developers and IT support staff who worked on the FAFSA form were a huge hit in the layoffs in the education division on Tuesday, along with staff acquisitions and trial employees termination. Overall, the education division has reduced its staff by half to about 2,000 since Trump took office.
A relaxed list of staff, obtained and verified by the Associated Press, shows that more than 300 people have been cut from federal student aid. This included the entire team responsible for the system supporting the FAFSA form. A person with knowledge of the suspension spoke to the Associated Press and spoke anonymously in fear of retaliation. The laidback staff is still technically employed until March 21, but said it has limited access to email, phone and computers, making it difficult to deal with the outage. At one point on Wednesday, about 70 people joined the team call, trying to determine the cause of the suspension.
The call lasted for hours. By Wednesday evening, the website had raised a flag claiming that “planned maintenance” was ongoing, blocking login access.
The education department did not immediately respond to requests for comment regarding the suspension.
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