Title IV Student Loan Servicing

First RFI Released - Title IV Student Loan Servicing This Request for Information (RFI) is for planning purposes only and shall not be construed as a Request of Proposal or as an obligation on the part of the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) to acquire any products or services. FSA does not intend to award a contract on the basis of this RFI, nor pay for the information provided. No entitlement to payment of direct or indirect costs or charges will arise as a result of submission of responses to the RFI and/or FSA's use of such information. The information provided shall be provided at no cost to the Government. FSA is conducting market research for Title IV Student Aid Servicing Services and Systems. The Title IV student aid portfolio, for which FSA is responsible to administer, primarily includes Direct Loans, Federal Family Education Loans, and Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grants that have been converted to loans. As of October 1, 2014, FSA's servicing portfolio included nearly 30 million student and parent borrowers and over $765 billion in outstanding loans. The portfolio is expected to exceed 40 million borrowers and $1 trillion in the upcoming years, and continue to grow. Currently, FSA's portfolio of Federal student loans is serviced by eleven loan servicers under contracts awarded through the Title IV Additional Servicer and Not-for-Profit Loan Servicer solicitations. There are advantages (e.g. competition to drive higher customer satisfaction and lower borrower delinquencies) and disadvantages (e.g. lack of consistency, operational complexity and inefficiency, additional cost) to this approach. While these Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity contracts are available to order services against through 2019, the size and complexity of FSA's loan servicing responsibilities necessitate careful transition planning and a thorough review of options well in advance of beginning a new procurement process. In addition, the procurement and transition process itself is expected to take several years to complete. Accordingly, FSA is seeking information on how we can efficiently and effectively manage a growing portfolio in a manner that will improve borrower satisfaction and outcomes; provide common borrower experiences; and allow for consolidated reporting of financial information, borrower data, etc. consistent with Federal accounting and audit requirements. Given our extensive experience with the current multi-servicer, multi-system contract model, we are particularly interested in gathering information on alternative approaches, such as the use of a single servicing platform, the use of specialized vendors to provide discrete services such as call center operations, and opportunities to leverage broader commercial servicing models within the student loan environment. Responses shall not exceed ten (10), single-spaced pages and shall identify the advantages and disadvantages of each potential approach for meeting the objectives identified above. NO MARKETING MATERIALS ARE ALLOWED AS PART OF THIS RFI. The government will not review any other information or attachments included, that are in excess of the 10 page limit. Responses shall be submitted electronically to Ms. Soo Kang at Soo.Kang@ed.gov and Ms. Karen Gibson at Karen.Gibson@ed.gov not later than January 30, 2015 at 1:00 pm EST in either MS Word (or be compatible with) or pdf file formats.