U.S. Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel Cardona is visiting Connecticut on Tuesday as part of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) Week of Action.
Cardona is expected to attend multiple events during his visit including a FAFSA Clinic in Hartford and a roundtable discussion at a community college in Middletown.
This comes as the U.S. Department of Education made changes to the FAFSA application that were intended to make the application process easier. Instead, the new application is causing delays for students and schools, and is still being fixed.
The Department of Education has said that roughly 30 percent of applications are being affected.
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Some students are still waiting on financial aid ahead of National College Decision Day on May 1. Because of this, many colleges and universities have postponed their enrollment commitment deadlines to May 15 or later, according to the National Association for College Admission Counseling.
During the visit on Tuesday, Cardona will visit a FAFSA clinic for high school seniors and their families at Hartford Public High School.
In addition to the FAFSA clinic, Cardona is also expected to visit a correctional facility in Cheshire. He plans to observe the career pathways classroom instruction at Cheshire Correctional Institution.
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Cardona will also participate in a roundtable discussion at Middlesex Community College to celebrate Community College Month. The discussion will talk about partnerships between correctional facilities and community colleges to create career pathways courses for incarcerated students.
Cardona, who is from Connecticut, was the state's commissioner of education before becoming the U.S. Secretary of Education in 2021.
