Melanie Storey has left the U.S. Department of Education, but she will not be stepping away from the political fray in Washington.
Storey, who served as director for policy implementation and oversight at the department’s Federal Student Aid (FSA) office for the last five years, will become the next president and chief executive of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, the organization announced on Tuesday. The former federal official will take the helm of the prominent association during a tumultuous time for the financial-aid profession, which is still reeling from the recent federal-aid crisis and bracing for further disruption amid President Trump’s attempt to dismantle the Education Department.
In her previous role, Storey helped lead prominent federal initiatives, including student-loan debt relief and implementation of the FAFSA Simplification Act. Before that, she led various higher-education and financial-aid policy initiatives at the College Board. She also served as director of national initiatives at the American Council on Education.
A first-generation college student, Storey first came to Washington after graduating from college. She landed a job for a federal contractor that helped keep the Pell Grant program running. “My entire career has been focused on higher education, college access, and providing opportunity and success for students,” she says. “It’s what motivates me and what drives me.”
In an interview with The Chronicle last week, Storey discussed the recent upheaval in Washington, its potential impact on the federal-aid system, and what financial-aid officers need to thrive in their jobs.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The secretary of education recently cut about half of the department’s staff. President Trump just signed an Executive Order to close the agency. What’s it like for the folks who are still working at the FSA office you just left?
It is a very integrated office. We all depend on each other to hold our lanes, and it’s really destabilizing to not know, to not understand, what that future is going to be. And the rhetorical — I want to say attacks, but that feels really strong — but just rhetorical dismissal of their work as civil servants day after day is really demoralizing.
People who have dedicated their careers to purpose-driven, mission-driven work feel deeply devalued, and that is a really tough perch on which to be trying to dig in and continue to deliver on the purpose that you care for. You don’t really know who you’ve got to support and to work with, or what the office’s goals are going to be going forward. The phrase that we’ve heard internally is “Doing less with less.” But, so far, I think their experience has been, at best, doing the same with less, or, in some cases, having to do more with less. And I just worry that that is not sustainable, and that the department will continue to lose the best talent that it has.
The Trump administration has stated that despite its push to shut down the Education Department, the agency’s critical functions, including the federal student-loan process, won’t be interrupted. Do you buy that?
I haven’t seen any evidence as to how they’re going to get there. I want to see the plan. We know that this is really complicated work, and to make the kind of broad-based changes that they’re talking about requires a lot of thought and planning, particularly if we’re talking about moving enormous functions to other federal agencies that are also seeing staffing reductions. These are large, complex systems that talk across each other. You can’t just move one system to the Treasury Department and another system to the Justice Department.
I just worry that this sort of ham-fisted approach of break now and fix later is, at best, naïve. But it’s also potentially misleading and damaging, because this needs to be done carefully, and they need to tell us how they anticipate that this will not impact the core delivery of the department’s services. Please show us. Stop giving us the assurances and show us the plan to reassign and redistribute the work, and make sure that the funding and staffing and technology specialists are going to be in place to make that work. That’s what we need to see. The words are great. Show us how you’re doing it.
What’s the most important thing you learned from your time working at FSA that you will carry into your new role?
I was at FSA during a tumultuous time. I started in March of 2020, right before the pandemic. I’ve had a front-row seat to the passion and commitment, and, quite frankly, the absolute, true heart of the financial-aid profession to deliver for their students through any challenge. Whether it’s the people at FSA or financial-aid administrators, there is a shared commitment to students.
But what is essential for that is transparency, clarity, and communication. Over the last few years at FSA, there was a lot of opacity to what was happening as we were implementing changes. So, to be good partners, we all have to be transparent and we have to communicate clearly. It’s a two-way street, and that’s just essential to us being able to work together to deliver for students.
Over the last year, financial-aid officers have been frustrated with the department for not communicating more clearly about problems with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. What’s the state of the FAFSA right now? And what concerns you most about it going forward, given all the staff cuts at the Education Department?
I think it is still to be written what the impact will be on the FAFSA. Despite the assurances from the administration that the core work will be delivered and will be fine, I am not as confident.
The department has been able to get the FAFSA — the application form, the eligibility calculation, and the delivery of data to institutions — to a stable point. But that is just a small part of the FAFSA ecosystem, and that is where my concern lies. It’s one thing to say that the core FAFSA team had not been impacted by the cuts. That core FAFSA team is very important. And we know some of the technology specialists have been brought back after the RIFs [reduction in force], because the government realized that they needed people to implement the software code. But I remain concerned that the full end-to-end service of the FAFSA is at risk.
The question is going to be: How is the government going to redistribute all of this work? That’s going to take a little bit of time. Even if they have people that they are going to put in place to try to fill these gaps in staffing, they need to be trained. They need to learn. These are complex processes. It isn’t going to be overnight.
Are those delays going to push back the development milestones required to get the 2026-27 FAFSA in place? It’s possible. We’re going to have to watch carefully. Another question is: Are we going to get an actual plan from the department about how they are going to do this? We haven’t seen one to date, which is concerning.
The parent of a first-time applicant doesn’t have any idea what is happening at Federal Student Aid, nor should they. If the federal-aid process is working smoothly, it should be invisible.
What will your first priority be after you start at NASFAA in May?
To listen to the membership and learn what’s happening to them. They are the front line of this work. One priority for me will be trying to help them navigate the policy volatility that has existed around financial aid in Washington for years. I want to make sure that the voices of financial-aid professionals are considered in those policy debates, and to try to mitigate that volatility that’s coming from the Congress, from the administration, from the courts.
We just talked about the FAFSA. Is it quote, unquote, fixed? I don’t think so. I still think we have a few more years. And it’s going to be impacted by this reduction in the federal work force and the tech talent that’s available to FSA.
Being connected deeply with the folks who are responsible for that is going to be important, and so will making sure that they are listening to the voices of the people who are delivering aid. Remember, no one at the Department of Education writes a check. The only way money gets into the hands of students is via the institutions. Financial-aid administrators are an important part of that ecosystem; the issues they are facing need to be heard.
I’m their voice here, and it’s my responsibility to use it.
I recently spoke with a financial-aid director who said she’s feeling “worn out, beaten down, and disillusioned.” Though she doesn’t necessarily speak for everyone, it’s fair to say many folks in her profession feel the same way.
I think you’re right. She doesn’t necessarily speak for everyone, but she speaks for a lot. Financial-aid administrators, understandably, do feel tired. They’re worn down. They are the front lines.
The parent of a first-time applicant doesn’t have any idea what is happening at Federal Student Aid, nor should they. If the federal-aid process is working smoothly, it should be invisible. But when it is not, financial-aid professionals become the primary source of information. They are the communicators for the federal government. And if the FAFSA is “broken,” they are the first-line responders. And that’s hard. It is intellectually difficult.
They have had new rules, new laws, and new processes to adapt to, but they also care deeply about the students and families they serve. So, they’re bearing the emotional burden of wanting to deliver for parents and families, who want nothing more than to navigate this very opaque system and to see it deliver on its promise to their child. Let’s just be clear, it is exhausting.
With such challenges in mind, what can a college president or high-ranking administrator do to help their financial-aid staff right now?
Make sure that they have the resources they need. It’s important to support the people who are currently in the profession by making sure that they are well compensated, that they have structures in place to support their work. And make sure they have the technology that they need, because the profession is advancing quickly in terms of its use of technology.
Also, think about how we create career paths in this profession. How do we tell the story of the importance of this career to our campuses? It is hard to recruit and retain talent in this profession. So it’s important for institutions to find ways to bring new people into this career and to support them, because we know that many financial-aid officers are deeply understaffed and excessively overworked.
The financial-aid profession is contending with many challenges and unknowns, and there’s an understandable degree of worry about what the future holds. Tell me about a positive development you can envision.
My baseline is optimism. So, let’s say in three years we can look back and say, yep, that was really hard, but we now have a better, streamlined, clearer system and processes in place to deliver aid and opportunity to students. The transition was rough and rocky, but today we’re serving students better, faster, and, maybe, more cheaply than before. I truly believe that the profession can get there, and will get there, with the help and support of our government partners.
