Improving federal student loan borrower experience

Challenge: ED’s office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) provides $112 billion each year in grants, work-study funds, and federal student loans to help students pay for college or career school. It also manages a portfolio for over 43 million existing borrowers. Using StudentAid.gov, FSA borrowers learn about, apply for, and manage their federal student aid. Currently, borrowers cannot review all activities –including form submissions and status– in a single location, and their loan information is spread across FSA and federal loan servicer sites. As a result, borrowers are unsure where to find their loan information and next steps. In one year alone, FSA’s contact centers received 700,000 calls about applications or case status.

Approach: With TMF support, FSA will:

• Centralize and merge loan information under the My Activity feature on StudentAid.gov
• Implement data and software technology that will lower agency costs over time

This investment will:

• Increase the borrowers’ ability to manage their federal student aid
• Lower customer care calls, wait times, emails, and chats
• Save FSA customer care costs each year