There’s a fine line between funny and insulting, and it appears that the Twitter account for FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, crossed it with its very first tweet.
The Tuesday night tweet blasted out the message, “If this is you, then you better fill out your FAFSA,” with an image of actress Kristen Wiig saying, “Help me. I’m poor,” underneath. It’s a screenshot from the movie “Bridesmaids.”
The Tuesday night tweet blasted out the message, “If this is you, then you better fill out your FAFSA,” with an image of actress Kristen Wiig saying, “Help me. I’m poor,” underneath. It’s a screenshot from the movie “Bridesmaids.”
Students who rely on financial aid to pay for college took umbrage at being called “poor,” and a few hours after the tweet went up, FAFSA deleted it.
The Department of Education also issued this statement to Consumerist:
We apologize for this insensitive Twitter post, which flies in the face of our mission of opening doors of opportunity for every student. It was an ill-conceived attempt at reaching students through social media. We are reviewing our process for approving social media content to ensure it reflects the high standards we expect at the U.S. Department of Education.
Even so, there’s no denying that the tweet and the apology were actually somewhat successful in drawing attention to FAFSA. As of Wednesday afternoon, the account had more than 65,000 followers.
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