Why was (is) FAFSA all messed up?

[Anonymous]

It’s a website that allows you to enter basic personal information. It does some simple calculations with the numbers. Why is this so hard? IT people, help me understand…

[Anonymous]

Civil service salaries for IT are well below those in the private sector.

Where do you think most good IT people work? They can do math.

[Anonymous]

But this is bonehead level programming…

[Anonymous]

Someone should have been fired over this already

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Civil service salaries for IT are well below those in the private sector.

Where do you think most good IT people work? They can do math.

The contract went to General Dynamics IT. Feds weren't sitting around doing the programming, Fool.

[Anonymous]

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/student-aid-policy/2024/03/04/how-ambitious-plans-new-fafsa-ended-fiasco

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Civil service salaries for IT are well below those in the private sector.

Where do you think most good IT people work? They can do math.

The contract went to General Dynamics IT. Feds weren't sitting around doing the programming, Fool.

false. ED is notorious for poor management. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/student-aid-policy/2024/03/04/how-ambitious-plans-new-fafsa-ended-fiasco

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Civil service salaries for IT are well below those in the private sector.

Where do you think most good IT people work? They can do math.

The contract went to General Dynamics IT. Feds weren't sitting around doing the programming, Fool.

Feds had to deliver the requirements to General Dynamics. There's good reason to suppose they screwed this up. E.g. the system required a social security number, but not all applicants had socials. GD IT has it's own problems, but it's likely that the Ed Department was a client from hell.

[Anonymous]

All of the above.

Writing the specs for any "construction" project including IT ones, let alone one this large, isn't easy. And what you think are the requirements going in, aren't always what they seem. Clients think they want "this" when they really need "that" and there's the inevitable quibbling over the user-interface and navigation not to mention the sometimes tricky backend "data" requirements. Throw in legal twists, a monolithic federal agency, and a large "we-know-what-we're-doing" contractor and you have a recipe for delays and disasters.

As always, follow the money. And there's LOTS of money at stake here, both in the software development, management, and maintenance as well as the actual purpose of the project. Millions of users and dollars are in play.

No way in he77 would I be involved in that project, with those players.

[Anonymous]

The whole system is ridiculous. If everyone wasn't so terrified of the IRS, it would make far more sense for them to manage it since they already have the vast majority of the information FAFSA collects. You could probably have it pre-populate 90% of the questions and just have the family sign off. Of course, the odds of that happening are the same as the odds of automated taxes (which seems to work just fine for most of the rest of the world).

[Anonymous]

^^
(I'm the "all of the above" PP)

I meant to add, from the OP, technically speaking, that "personal" information isn't always so simple or easy. "Name" and "Address", not to mention any identifiers, are complicated. How many "names" do you allow? First, Middle, and Last is no longer a standard; there can be as few as two and certainly more than three. And what order do you display and/or verify them? Family name first or last? For reporting purposes, do you sort by the first surname? Are hyphenated names listed before or after two same names without a hyphen? Do you need to track "prior" versions? Or just keep "the current one"?

"Address," too, is all over the place with different constructs for street name parsing and delivery address can be different from location address (that's likely not a factor here). You'd think the USPS's database would provide some assistance but let's involve another big federal agency. /s

As for the "identifiers," they are the touchiest of components and often need security protocols. There is an IRS standard for Federal Identification numbers but, given the current climate of -- well, we can't really require one -- it presents a potential legal or social quandary on how to validate input or advise of inaccuracies. What do you do if someone else has already used/reported that identifier? Do you just kick it out, allow it, flag the prior instance for audit/research?

So, what sounds so easy....isn't. And I haven't even begun to contemplate the intricacies of interfacing with IRS data. Can these all be spec-ed out? Sure. It just takes time and diligence and agility to adjust when yet another wrinkle arises.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Civil service salaries for IT are well below those in the private sector.

Where do you think most good IT people work? They can do math.

The contract went to General Dynamics IT. Feds weren't sitting around doing the programming, Fool.

Omg! I’m constantly amazed at how people think the government works. To think some thought federal employees sat there and created the FAFSA site. 🤯 Having worked in tech for both private industry and the government, I can assure you both have equal incompetence.