U.S. Department of Education has egg on its face after posting a tweet that some people found offensive because it appeared to mock low-income students.

Inside Higher Ed’s Michael Stratford has the story:

On Tuesday evening, the Twitter account for the department’s Office of Federal Student Aid sent out a message that said: “If this is you, then you better fill out your FAFSA.”

It included a photo of a woman frowning with the caption, “Help me. I’m poor.”

The photo depicts a scene from the movie “Bridesmaids” in which Kristen Wiig’s character is intoxicated and protesting a flight attendant’s decision to kick her out of the first-class cabin.

The tweet, which was subsequently deleted, immediately prompted a torrent of negative reaction on Twitter. “Unbelievable. Take this down,” wrote Anne Kress, president of Monroe Community College. She added: “everything about this is tone deaf and just wrong.”

“If I didn’t hate FAFSA enough before, that tweet definitely did it,” wrote one student. “There is nothing amusing about not being able to afford your education.”

“Hey fafsa, I relied on you during my entire college career and still have hundreds in loans to pay each month,” wrote another user. “It’s never funny.”

Still, other students said on Twitter that they would be willing to move past the incident – for a price. One wrote: “[H]onestly that tweet was very offensive … give me an extra 6k and we can act like you never offended me.”

The federal student aid office’s Twitter account sent a message early Wednesday morning that apologized for the “insensitivity” of the tweet.

“Our goal is to make college a reality for all,” the message said. “We’re very sorry.”

A department spokeswoman responded Wednesday morning via email to a request for comment sent late Tuesday night.

“We apologize for this insensitive Twitter post, which flies in the face of our mission of opening doors of opportunity for every student,” said Dorie Nolt, the spokeswoman. “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.” (Note: This article has been updated to include the department’s statement.)