Federal student loan site down Wednesday, a day after layoffs gutted Education Department

An hours-long outage connected StudentAid

WASHINGTON -- An hours-long outage Wednesday connected StudentAid.gov, the national website for pupil loans and fiscal aid, underscored the risks successful rapidly gutting the Department of Education, arsenic President Donald Trump aims to dismantle the agency.

Hundreds of users reported FAFSA outages to Downdetector starting midday Wednesday, saying they were having occupation completing the form, which is required for fiscal assistance astatine colleges nationwide. The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, a radical of radical who grip colleges' fiscal assistance awards, besides received reports of users experiencing method issues and having occupation completing the FAFSA.

“We’ve been trying to get much clarity connected wherefore it’s down," said Allie Bidwell Arcese, a spokeswoman for NASFAA. The Education Department hadn't shared immoderate accusation connected the outage, she said. “The attraction and troubleshooting whitethorn beryllium impacted by yesterday’s layoffs.”

The developers and IT enactment unit who worked connected the FAFSA signifier were hard deed successful the Education Department's layoffs Tuesday, on with unit buyouts and the termination of probationary employees. In all, the Education Department has reduced its unit by half, to astir 2,000, since Trump took office.

A database of laid-off unit obtained and verified by AP shows much than 300 radical chopped from Federal Student Aid — 2 twelve of them from Federal Student Aid's exertion division. That included the full squad liable for systems supporting the FAFSA form, a idiosyncratic with cognition of the outage told The Associated Press, speaking anonymously for fearfulness of retaliation. While laid-off staffers are inactive technically employed until March 21, they had constricted entree to their email, phones and computers, making a effect to the outage difficult, the idiosyncratic said. At 1 constituent Wednesday, astir 70 radical had joined a Teams telephone to effort to pinpoint the origin of the outage.

The telephone continued for hours. By Wednesday evening, the website carried a banner claiming “Planned Maintenance” was underway, and login entree was chopped off.

The Education Department did not respond to a petition for remark connected the outage.

Problems with the FAFSA had vexed the medication of erstwhile President Joe Biden, drafting rebuke from Republicans. The signifier was overhauled past twelvemonth successful an effort to simplify it, but method problems blocked students from submitting forms oregon bungled fiscal assistance calculations.

Advocates accidental the vexation astir apt led thousands of students to springiness up connected going to assemblage astatine all. Last fall, U.S. colleges saw a 5% alteration successful freshmen enrollment implicit the erstwhile year, and it was deeper astatine colleges with ample numbers of low-income students, according to the National Student Clearinghouse.

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