Adam Czarkowski works in the technology sector and lives in Penacook.

For those lamenting the fate of the U.S. Department of Education, let me remind you of how the department’s gross incompetence impacted the class of 2024 with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid disaster.

In 2021, Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act. It was an attempt to make the college financial aid application process easier. Spoiler alert it didn’t.

The implementation of the FAFSA Simplification Act fell on the Biden administration’s Department of Education. The department’s first mistake was deciding to hire a defense contractor to rework years of complex website code. It’s strange that they would hire a defense contractor over the many qualified tech companies that exist in the U.S.

The department then failed to meet the release date for the new application even after getting an extension from Congress. When the form was released on Jan. 7, 2024, many families that applied found multiple errors and were unable to submit an application. A review by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that the department released the application to families with 55 known technical defects!

In layman’s terms, the Department of Education released this application to families knowing it would fail.

To add insult to injury, when families called the department for help, their calls went unanswered. According to the GAO, of the 5.4 million calls received by the Department of Education call center, four million went unanswered. The department failed to answer three-quarters of the calls it received from families looking for help.

The greatest sin it committed was not communicating at all with students or colleges. After your application was submitted, the department went silent. Many parents had to put deposits on their student’s tuition without any idea whether they would receive financial aid or how much they would receive.

Government incompetence has consequences. According to the GAO, the FAFSA problems contributed to a 9% decrease in high school seniors and other first-time applicants submitting a financial aid application. Closer to home, the University of New Hampshire reported the lowest enrollment of first-generation American students in over a decade, as reported by WMUR.

In a pattern of lack of accountability, the Biden administration never held former Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona responsible for the massive failure of his organization. Will the Small Business Administration do a better job? While nothing is impossible, it is hard to foresee any organization doing worse.

The Department of Education has shown itself to be grossly incompetent. Maybe it is time for a change.