Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings has noted that the federal financial aid application is "longer than most people's tax forms." (3) Other problems noted in the Commission's Report include:
"The current system does not provide definitive information about freshman year aid until the spring of the senior year in high school, which makes it difficult for families to plan and discourages college attendance."
"The advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance estimates that in the first decade of the new century, financial barriers will keep nearly 2 million low- and middle-income college qualified high school graduates from attending college."
"Large majorities of adults 59 percent overall and 63 percent among parents of college students say students today graduate with too much debt."

The report contained several recommendations regarding college costs, including "significantly increase need-based student aid" at the federal and state level, replacement of the FAFSA form with a "shorter and simpler application form" with "earlier estimates of likely aid available as soon as the eighth grade" and establishing a specific benchmark to "increase the purchasing power of the average Pell Grant to a level of 70 percent (from 48 percent in 2004-2005) of the average in-state tuition at public, four-year institutions over a period of five years." The commission report also suggested a benchmark be established that "the growth in college tuition not exceed the growth in median family income over a five-year period."