91003119R0007_Amendment_0002.pdf

NSN 7540-01-152-8070 STANDARD FORM 30. (Rev. 10-83) Previous Edition unusable Prescribed by GSA FAR (48 CFR) 53.243

Page of Pages AMENDMENT OF SOLICITATION/MODIFICATION OF CONTRACT 1. Contract ID Code

2. AMENDMENT MODIFICATION NO. 3. EFFECTIVE DATE 4. REQUISITION/PURCHASE REQ. NO. 5. PROJECT NO. (if applicable)

6. ISSUED BY CODE 7. ADMINISTERED BY (If other than item 6) CODE

(x) 9A. AMENDMENT OF SOLICITATION NO.

9B. DATED (SEE ITEM 11)

10A. MODIFICATION OF CONTRACT/ORDER NO.

8. NAME AND ADDRESS OF CONTRACTOR (NO., Street, Country, State and ZIP Code)

CODE FACILITY CODE

10B. DATED (SEE ITEM 13)

11. THIS ITEM ONLY APPLIES TO AMENDMENTS OF SOLICITATIONS

The above numbered solicitation is amended as set forth in item 14. The hour and date specified for receipt of offers is extended, is not extended.

Offers must acknowledge receipt of this amendment prior to the hour and date specified in the solicitation or as amended, by one of the following methods:

(a) By completing items 8 and 15, and returning ______ copies of amendment; (b) By acknowledging receipt of this amendment on each copy of the offer submitted;

or (c) By separate letter or telegram which includes a reference to the solicitation and amendment numbers. FAILURE OF YOUR ACKNOWLEDGMENT TO BE RECEIVED AT THE PLACE DESIGNATED FOR THE RECEIPT OR OFFERS PRIOR TO THE HOUR AND DATE SPECIFIED MAY RESULT IN REJECTION OF YOUR OFFER. If by virtue of this amendment your desire to change an offer already submitted, such change may be made by telegram or letter, provided each telegram or letter makes reference to the solicitation and this amendment, and is received prior to the opening hour and date specified.

12. ACCOUNTING AND APPROPRIATION DATA (If required)

13. THIS ITEM ONLY APPLIES TO MODIFICATION OF CONTRACTS/ORDERS. IT MODIFIES THE CONTRACT/ORDER NO. AS DESCRIBED IN ITEM 14.

Check One

A. THIS CHANGE ORDER IS ISSUED PURSUANT TO: (Specify authority) THE CHANGES SET FORTH IN ITEM 14 ARE MADE IN THE

CONTRACT ORDER NO. IN ITEM 10A.

B. THE ABOVE NUMBERED CONTRACT/ORDER IS MODIFIED TO REFLECT THE ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGES (such as changes in paying office, appropriation date, etc) SET FORTH IN ITEM 14, PURSUANT TO THE AUTHORITY OF FAR 43.103(b).

C. THIS SUPPLEMENTAL AGREEMENT IS ENTERED INTO PURSUANT TO AUTHORITY OF:

D. OTHER (Specify type of modification and authority)

E. IMPORTANT: Contractor is not, is required to sign this document and return _______ copies to the issuing office.

14. DESCRIPTION OF AMENDMENT/MODIFICATION (Organized by UCF section headings, including solicitation/contract subject matter where feasible)

Except as provided herein, all terms and conditions of the document referenced in item 9A or 10A, as heretofore changed, remains unchanged and in full force and effect.

15A. NAME AND TITLE OF SIGNER (Type or print)

16A. NAME AND TITLE OF CONTRACTING OFFICER (Type or print)

15B. CONTRACTOR/OFFEROR 16B. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

(Signature of person authorized to sign)

15C. DATE SIGNED

(Signature of Contracting Officer)

16C. DATE SIGNED

Attachment Page

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SECTION B – SUPPLIES OR SERVICES AND PRICES/COSTS

Section B Contract Line Item Numbers, Pricing Template and Attachment “18 – Pricing Template/Instructions” will be provided with the next amendment.

SECTION C – DESCRIPTION/SPECIFICATIONS/STATEMENT OF WORK

C.1 - INTRODUCTION

The U.S. Department of Education (ED), Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA), is embarking on a transformation known as the Next Generation Financial Services Environment (NextGen). Through this initiative, FSA seeks to implement a flexible, more efficient and effective financial solution to leverage in supporting its citizens. Initially, FSA seeks to modernize its technical and operational architecture, in a manner that provides flexibility to expand and support other financial services. This effort will also include creating a new FSA-branded omni-channel engagement approach led by a mobile-first, mobile-complete, and mobile-continuous digital platform to support the complete federal life cycle of student financing. In addition to improving the overall customer experience, the new environment seeks to improve operational flexibility, enhance cost and operational efficiency, and generate better outcomes for customers and taxpayers.

FSA seeks an Optimal Processing Solution addressing functions across the full lifecycle of student financial aid, from application to pay-off or default, inclusive of: a) FAFSA/Eligibility Determination,

b) Origination & Disbursement Processing, and c) Servicing Support Processing.

Summary of Key Dates

1. April 10, 2019, 2:00pm Eastern Standard Time: Written questions requesting clarification of the solicitation. Offerors shall only submit questions based on changes to the amended solicitation.

Questions outside of the scope of the amendment or questions that were asked in earlier question rounds will not be answered. See L.15.3 Communication with the Contracting Office.

2. May 8, 2019, 4:30pm Eastern Standard Time: All Proposal Volumes. See L.15.2 Proposal Volume Requirements, L.15.2.5 Submission Due Dates.

3. No later than October 1, 2020: Delivery of Eligibility Processing Solution. See C.1.2.3 Target Milestones.

4. Optional and TBD: Delivery of Originations & Disbursement Processing Solution. See C.1.2.3 Target Milestones.

5. Optional and TBD: Delivery of Servicing Support Processing Solution. See C.1.2.3 Target Milestones.

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C.1.2 Contract Type

The resulting award will be a Firm Fixed Price Contract. The Government anticipates the following periods of performance:

Development & Implementation and Operation & Maintenance (O&M) for Eligibility Processing, Origination and Disbursement Processing and/or Servicing Support Processing – One (1) year Base

Period with nine (9) one (1) year Option Periods.

Development & Implementation

Operating Element 1/Milestone 1: Eligibility Processing Solution (C.2.3.1) Development and Implementation by no Later than October 1, 2020.

Operating Element 2/Milestone 2: Origination and Disbursement Processing Solution (C.2.3.2) – Optional Task o If exercised, FSA anticipates doing so within the first five years, allowing up to 12 months for Development & Implementation.

Operating Element 3/Milestone 3: Servicing Support Processing Solution (C.2.3.3) – Optional Task o If exercised, FSA anticipates doing so within the first five years, allowing up to 12 months for Development & Implementation.

Operation & Maintenance

Operating Element 1/Milestone 1: Eligibility Processing Solution (C.2.3.1) O&M will begin by no later than October 1, 2021.

Operating Element 2/Milestone 2: Origination and Disbursement Processing Solution (C.2.3.2) – Optional Task o If exercised, O&M will begin up to 12 months after Development & Implementation.

Operating Element 3/Milestone 3: Servicing Support Processing Solution (C.2.3.3) – Optional Task o If exercised, O&M will begin up to 12 months after Development & Implementation.

C.1.2.3 Target Milestones FSA has identified target milestones in pursuit of the goals identified in section C.1.3. Solution shall consider three specific dependencies: large scale, complexity, and an aggressive timeline. It is critical the solution is designed and implemented against the identified Operating Elements/Milestones in Section C.2 to ensure FSA can achieve its goals. FSA welcomes and Offerors may propose a Total Solution encompassing all milestones and operating elements, without respect to sequencing outlined above, offering an innovative approach and schedule.

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C.1.3 – FSA BACKGROUND, GOALS, AND VISION

C.1.3.1 Background

FSA’s core mission is to ensure that all eligible customers benefit from Federal financial assistance – grants, loans, work-study programs, etc. – for education beyond high school. The programs FSA administers comprise the nation’s largest source of student financing. Every year, over 18 million students apply for Federal financing and FSA has over 42 million customers across the lifecycle of student financing. FSA’s total lending portfolio is $1.4+ trillion in outstanding loans including $1.1 trillion that is directly serviced. The lending portfolio is growing at 7% per year, driven by nearly $100 billion in annual disbursements across more than 17 million annual loan originations.

In conjunction with institutions of higher learning and third-party vendors, FSA provides student financing information and services across the full federal lifecycle of student financing, from application through servicing and recovery.

At the beginning of the life cycle, customers apply for federal financing via the Free Application for

Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). FSA uses this information to calculate eligibility for federal grants and student loans. For eligible customers, schools will originate and disburse loans to FSA customers.

Once customers enter repayment, customer loans are assigned to one of nine servicers, which perform a complete set of Federal student loan servicing activities including: customer service; loan counseling;

loan consolidation; billing and payment application and processing; repayment plan adjustments and application of benefits such as deferments, forbearance, or loan forgiveness/discharge; outreach and default aversion; quality control; and financial and other data reporting. Each of the nine servicers operates its own engagement layer with proprietary branding (e.g., websites, tools, contact centers), utilizes one of four servicing platforms, and maintains certain additional technical systems (e.g., identity and access management solutions). Individual customers may have several loans on different repayment plans and may be enrolled in special programs (e.g., Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), Total and

Permanent Disability (TPD) loans, Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education

(TEACH) grants, Perkins Loans, Pell Grant overpayments).

For customers who fail to pay their loans, currently FSA and Private Collection Agencies (PCA) share

Federal default recovery activities. Once a loan defaults, FSA transfers the loan to the Default

Management and Collections System (DMCS) and attempts to bring the loan back to good standing. If unsuccessful, collection activity is turned over to contracted third-party PCA that pursues default resolution. Customers may rehabilitate a defaulted loan by making a series of payments or consolidating

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their loans out of default. This process often results in rehabilitated borrowers being handed off multiple times between DMCS, PCA and the Servicers.

Today’s fragmented landscape has created many issues across the full lifecycle of student financing, including:

1. Inconsistent customer experience: FSA customers move through the lifecycle of student financing working with multiple vendors and partners from application to repayment and recovery, each of which have different interfaces, processes, and standards;

2. Limited branding opportunities for FSA: The lack of consistent branding can leave customers confused and unclear about the role the Federal government; particularly the role FSA plays in their student financing journey; and

3. Operational complexity and inefficiency: Across the life cycle, vendors have built redundant technical and operational solutions, creating inefficiencies and poor experiences. Further, across vendors, data management and cybersecurity practices are inconsistent and siloed.

Additional information about FSA can be found in Attachment “01 – As-Is” and the 2018 Annual Report located at: https://www2.ed.gov/about/reports/annual/2018report/fsa-report.pdf.

C.1.3.2 Goals and Vision

FSA has established four goals for the future state environment that apply to Full Life Cycle Processing, including:

Goal 1: FSA intends to provide a more efficient and effective customer and partner experience throughout the lifecycle of student financing to ensure:

1. Easier, more seamless customer interactions with FSA through an enterprise-wide;

2. FSA-branded, omni-channel digital platform, featuring a mobile-first;

3. Mobile-complete, and mobile-continuous solution (i.e., allowing FSA to maintain a relationship with its customers throughout the customer lifecycle) to enable customers to receive additional support through the channel most appropriate to their needs;

4. Customers receive an experience informed by a holistic understanding of the lifecycle of student financing and customer needs, refined through ongoing analysis of customer data and feedback, and continuously improved through activities like iterative user testing;

5. Customers better understand the financial implications of their student debt and make more informed decisions regarding the various repayment options and protections available to Federal customers; and

6. Customers receive a consistent experience solely under the FSA brand across all vendors.

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Goal 2: FSA intends to improve its operational flexibility by creating an environment that can efficiently and effectively integrate new and existing capabilities and features, continuously improve and innovate, and adjust to stay in compliance with changing Federal rules, regulations, and law.

Goal 3: FSA intends to drive greater operational efficiency; reduce complexity; improve the stability, resiliency, enterprise risk management, and cybersecurity of its systems; and ensure effective and efficient use of taxpayer dollars.

Goal 4: FSA intends to measure its success in part on how well it improves customer outcomes and facilitates compliance with Federal consumer protection standards and Title IV legal requirements.

Examples of improved customer outcomes include: increased customer satisfaction scores, better informed borrowing decisions, decreased percentage of borrowers in delinquency or default, reduction of borrowers in deferment and forbearance, increased borrower repayment rate, increased digital self-service by customers (instead of calls to FSA), and reduction in mail correspondence and payments (in favor of digital solutions).

FSA intends to accomplish those goals by deploying a new technical and operational architecture that will provide a more efficient and effective customer (e.g., student, parent, and borrower) and partner

(e.g., schools) experience across the entire lifecycle of student financing, including both enterprise-wide solutions and solutions specifically for student processing and servicing. This architecture will include:

Vision:

Omni-channel, enterprise-wide customer engagement led by a mobile-first, mobile-complete, and mobile-continuous solution

To enable a more efficient and effective customer experience, FSA intends to implement an enterprise-wide, FSA-branded omni-channel digital platform featuring a mobile-first, mobile-complete, and mobile-continuous solution. The digital platform will be FSA’s “digital front door” for all customer journeys to replace FSA’s multiple customer facing websites. To realize this vision, the digital platform will consolidate the functionalities of the multiple websites, mobile applications, and contact centers that currently exist across the full customer lifecycles (from application to school to servicing to default). This will require the digital platform to be closely integrated with other NextGen solutions, other future state solutions, and existing FSA systems (including those that serve partners). This solution will provide customers with a personalized, self-service experience across multiple channels, robust self-service options, and seamless escalation to additional support when needed.

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Common, Integrated Data Management

FSA envisions a solution to ensure customer touchpoints feed into a common integrated data management platform which contains all customer information from throughout the lifecycle of student financing. This common, integrated data management system will allow FSA to:

1. Generate customer and loan portfolio insights through advanced analytics that improve services and reduce risk;

2. Reduce error rates to lessen customer frustration and processing expense;

3. Lower operating expenses through efficiency gains; and

4. Consolidate processing activities across the multiple current systems onto fewer, new and/or upgraded platforms.

Robust cybersecurity and data protection

State-of-the-art cybersecurity protection shall be integrated into all existing and future state solutions, and enterprise-wide cybersecurity will be holistically assessed and tested on an ongoing basis to ensure customer and FSA data is consistently protected.

Integration across the enterprise and potential to further scale solutions

Solutions will need to be integrated with existing and new solutions as well as vendors from across the lifecycle of student financing. Accordingly, all solutions will be implemented with both integration and future scalability in mind, ensuring third-parties can “plug in” to use common tools and feed into common interfaces.

Implementation approach that minimizes risk and disruption for customers while deploying more efficient and effective solutions

FSA anticipates the near-term need for multiple servicing solutions while moving towards the future state of a single servicing platform operating environment. FSA will need to migrate, through conversion, nearly 200 million loan accounts from existing Servicers on a rapid but feasible schedule that minimizes disruptions for customers while ensuring that complete migration.

The Optimal Processing Solution will need to have the flexibility necessary to seamlessly integrate with existing and future solutions provided by FSA or other vendors, across the entire lifecycle of student financing. Those solutions include NextGen solutions such as the FSA-branded digital platform, contact center technical backbone and support, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), business process operations, identity and access management, and analytics platform. FSA Digital Communications and

Care (DCC) solution is in development. The Optimal Processing Solution (OPS) must initially be

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developed and integrated to support aid eligibility determinations and soon thereafter origination and disbursement activities. Data from OPS will initially be stored in OPS and shared with legacy servicers.

FSA will have dedicated resources to validate vendor accountability by monitoring the operational environment and vendor performance to ensure a higher caliber of service than current state.

C.2 – OBJECTIVES, REQUIREMENTS, AND MILESTONES

C.2.1 Solution Objectives

Optimal Processing Solution shall be a highly adaptable solution set which supports current and future

FSA products and processes across the entire lifecycle of student financing, including but not limited to:

functions for application for financing, to origination and disbursement, to processing and servicing and pay-off or default. Solution will deploy integrated functions and products over time. Solution shall deliver cost efficiencies through significantly increased automation and a modern technical backbone

(e.g., modular code base, cloud operability, two-speed development compatibility, and/or innovative middleware). Solution shall better support changing rules, laws, and regulations with minimal operational complexity through the greater flexibility afforded by having separate rules engine(s) and integrated process workflows.

C.2.2 General Operating Requirements

The Optimal Processing Solution shall satisfy these general requirements across all solutions outlined in

Section C.2.3:

Adaptability, flexibility, and ongoing innovation: Solution shall efficiently and effectively adapt to changes in the FSA operating environment (including changing Federal rules, regulations, and laws), innovation in commercial financial services, and FSA’s goals. Solution shall easily scale to handle changes in account and transaction volumes and have the flexibility to enable incremental modifications without necessitating full production implementation efforts or additional costs.

Solution shall be severable and portable as modules which, at the discretion of FSA, may be further developed and operated separately by a different vendor or third-party provider. This includes, but is not limited to: separate code management, build and deploy process, support environments, and/or production environment.

Solution shall be built with a modern architecture (e.g., but not limited to: modular code base, cloud operability, two-speed development, rules engine, modern language) to deliver more efficient and effective functionalities and cutting-edge industry practices and products.

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Solution shall implement a DevSecOps-driven-infrastructure that automates environment creation, testing, code quality checks, and deployment as much as possible (e.g., automatic issue flagging and event-triggered escalation).

Integration: Solution shall be developed and implemented to ensure easy integration with existing FSA or third-party solutions and NextGen solutions, as necessary to execute required functions. Solution shall enable FSA, other government agencies, and designated third-parties to interface or engage with it as necessary. Solution shall care for broad integration needs including, but not limited to: supporting or re-engineering existing application program interfaces (API), building and exposing new APIs, exchanging and harmonizing business rules for workflows, providing development and test environments, and collaborating with FSA and other vendors to resolve integration issues which arise.

Digital Experiences: Digital Experiences include front-end, middleware, and back-end services that enable web (including web-responsive sites), mobile app, social media, and customer care channels (telephony and chat) to support FSA’s interactions with schools and partners. All student and parent Digital Experiences (Mobile and Web) for Eligibility Processing, Origination and Disbursement Processing, and Servicing Support Processing will be provided by the Enterprise Digital Experience provider. The selected Contract Awardee will be required to provide secure APIs to the Digital Experience Provider to support the Digital Experiences for these business functions. All school, partner and FSA Digital Experiences (Mobile and Web) for Eligibility Processing, Origination and Disbursement Processing, and Servicing Support Processing will be provided by the selected Contract Awardee.

1. These Digital Experiences shall be severable and transferable to the Enterprise Digital Experience provider if required by FSA.

2. The selected Contract Awardee shall consider the technical architectures used by the Enterprise Digital Experience provider to ensure integration with FSA’s Enterprise Digital Experience at a later time.

3. The selected Contract Awardee shall secure all APIs using any future FSA standards. The digital experience will be provided through DCC and data will be exchanged between DCC and OPS.

Adherence to and monitoring for changes in laws and regulations: Solution shall meet or exceed existing Federal rules, laws, regulations, agency guidelines or court mandates applicable to the FSA operating environment (including all accessibility elements such as 504/508 compliance). Solution shall establish a process for monitoring and informing personnel of new or pending changes to applicable laws and regulations, and then proactively partner with FSA to determine and communicate the implications to technical design and/or operational procedures. Solution shall continuously update to adhere to applicable laws and regulations.

Cybersecurity, Hosting and Middleware: Solution shall include robust cybersecurity protections and features to protect customer data. The solution must comply with the conditions in Attachment “02 – Security Technical Requirements”.

1. Solution shall meet Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standards, and all cybersecurity regulations and mandates, including Presidential Executive Order (EO) 13800 - Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure, to Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover. Solution

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shall ensure that all development and management tools, including project management, version control, code repositories, DevSecOps management, monitoring, and cybersecurity, etc., are identified in the technical solution and in the system security boundary.

2. Solution shall be hosted in a secure environment. If any aspect of the solution is hosted in the cloud, the solution must be FedRAMP-approved or FedRAMP-“ready”, or must be hosted in a private cloud, per the definition in Attachment “02-Security Technical Requirements.” The solution may not be hosted in a shared, multi-tenant environment. Please note the FedRAMP-approved cloud shall require a Department/Agency-level Authorization to Operate (ATO), followed by the FSA-issued ATO for the system, which shall be FISMA and/or FedRAMP-approved at either a Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) -199 High level or Moderate level, depending on the proposed architecture and corresponding FIPS-199 category of the system.

Special Notices

1. Hosting and Infrastructure: All vendors are hereby placed on notice that FSA, in seeking to comply with Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act, ED’s Strategic IT goals, as well as Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB)-mandated goals established in the Data Center Optimization Initiative (DCOI), may require all new applications and information systems, once created and stabilized, to transition to and leverage common cloud infrastructure services (e.g. through FSA’s Next Generation Data Center (NGDC) or some other FSA-identified services), and/or leverage common enterprise-wide traditional data center services and infrastructure hosting provider (e.g. through FSA’s NGDC or some other FSA-identified services/provider). The NGDC program provides a physical data center structure, access to FISMA High private cloud infrastructure services, and access to FedRAMP High and FedRAMP Moderate cloud infrastructure services, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Azure.

2. Middleware: All vendors are hereby placed on notice that FSA, in seeking to build a future state environment with a consistent, reliable, and scalable architecture; prevent duplication, redundancy, and incompatibility; and reduce costs and complexity, reserves the option to require all new applications and information systems, once created and stabilized, to transition to and leverage a common Enterprise IT Architecture (EITA), FSA’s enterprise middleware architecture program, for middleware and cloud platform services and support. At present, EITA includes Integrated Technical Architecture (ITA) and Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), future middleware capabilities, as well Platform-as-a-Service services support in the cloud.

3. Section 6103 of Title 26 Internal Revenue Code: All vendors are hereby placed on notice that compliance with the security requirements that are provided in IRS 1075 Publication (See Publication 1075, Tax Information Security Guidelines for Federal, State and Local Agencies) may be applicable and should be considered in the solution design.

4. In regards to these Special Notices, any future changes will be managed through FSAs’ Change Management Process that will be identified in the contract.

Identity and Access Management: Solution shall use FSA’s chosen Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions for authorization, authentication, Single-Sign-On (SSO) via standards-based federation, self-services, and identity management. This will enable FSA to build a future state environment with a consistent and scalable set of security services for provisioning and managing all users, including

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Optimal Processing Solution personnel, other vendors or third-parties, and FSA staff – implementation timing to be agreed with FSA. Attachment “09 – FSA Identity & Access Management Solution Overview” provides an overview of FSA’s IAM solutions.

Data architecture standards: Solution shall implement the enterprise logical and physical data standards supporting FSA’s master data management initiative.

Financial accuracy and compliance: Solution shall include robust measures for ensuring the compliance and accuracy of financial transactions and reporting. Technical requirements for current state financial standards are included in Attachment “03 –Finance Technical Requirements”. FSA anticipates the Full Life Cycle solution to be able to more efficiently and effectively meet requirements as compared to current processes.

Additional current state technical constraints: In addition to security and financial requirements, Offerors also shall acknowledge an understanding of other functional categories of current state technical constraints where relevant (e.g., processing, websites, communications, etc.). For a broader informational view of FSA’s current servicing environment, Offerors are encouraged to review Attachment “04 – Additional Current State Technical Constraints,” which provides a representative, though not comprehensive set of technical constraints. A comprehensive set of jointly agreed-upon requirements will be defined post award.

1. These constraints are derived from existing laws, regulations, agency guidance, and business rules, and will change based upon acts of Congress, updates to Federal regulatory and non-regulatory guidance, and FSA’s goals.

2. Offerors may propose solution-relevant alternative, more efficient, accurate, or customer-centered approaches and processes (vs. those detailed in the current state technical constraints) to accomplish FSA’s outcomes.

3. Specialty programs (e.g., PSLF, TEACH, TPD, Perkins, Pell) and specialty claims (e.g., discharge, forgiveness) require special handling as well as specific and unique processing rules that impact the Optimal Processing Solution, along with other existing and future solutions, and often relate to multiple constraints.

Full lifecycle of student financing portfolio scope: Solution shall provide relevant functions for the full lifecycle of student financing portfolio which includes, but is not limited to:

1. FAFSA

2. Eligibility Determination

3. Loan and Grant Origination and Disbursement

4. Servicing Support Processing

a. Loan statuses (e.g., In school, In grace, In delinquency, In default, In forbearance, In deferment);

b. Customer segments (e.g., military customers);

c. Traditional repayment plans (e.g., Standard, Graduated, and Extended);

d. Income-driven repayment plans (e.g., Income-Contingent, Income-Based, Pay-As-You-Earn, and Revised-Pay-As-You-Earn);

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e. Grant programs (e.g., TEACH); and

f. Loan forgiveness and discharge programs (e.g., PSLF, TPD), and

g. Default Loan Servicing (e.g. DMCS).

Customer experience focus: Solution shall prioritize customer and partner needs and preferences to assist FSA in enabling a more efficient and effective customer experience throughout the lifecycle of student financing with respect to processing. Helpful additional context on the current state can be found in Attachment “05 – Current State Customer Tasks,” Attachment “06 – Current State Partner Tasks”, Attachment “07 – Top Customer Pain Points”, and Attachment “11 – Life of the Loan Servicing Intended State”.

Contribution to knowledge and training of Business Process Operations personnel: Solution shall work with the DCC-provided Command Center on common knowledge resources, contact scripts, agent desktop guides, and other training materials, ensuring that customer-facing instructions and resolution steps as well as back-office processing procedures are accurate in relation to Optimal Processing Solution. The Command Center is responsible for coordinating the development, improvement, maintenance, and distribution of knowledge and training for Business Operations and other FSA-designated personnel.

Performance management: Solution shall have performance management mechanisms that will enable improved and ongoing achievement of metrics to be defined at award, as Service Level Agreements (SLA). Example metrics may include but are not limited to: customer satisfaction (compared to a common index), processing error rates, on-time reconciliation and reporting. Vendor shall ensure that its staff is aware of FSA’s performance expectations.

Quality control: Solution shall be supported by documented policies and procedures on vendor quality management system to ensure that more efficient and effective service can be provided.

Software licenses: Commercial software licenses acquired under this contract shall be licensed to the Government.

Technical Support Help Desk: Solution shall provide a Tier 2 Technical Support Help Desk to address technical issues with the solution or data generated by it. Tier 1 support will be provided a separate contact center support solution, and Tier 2 is an escalation of calls from Tier 1.

Transactional Data Integration: Solution shall provide transactional level data into FSA’s Enterprise Data Management and Analytics Platform Services (EDMAPS) environment.

Data Conversion and Migration: Solution shall plan to migrate and convert existing Eligibility (FAFSA/Central Processing System [CPS]) and Common Originations & Disbursement (COD) (Optional Task, Milestone 2) data and records necessary to effectively support future Eligibility and Originations & Disbursement (Optional Task, Milestone 2) functions. See FSA Deliverable Table C.2.4.2.

FSA does not envision an initial migration and/or conversion of Servicing Support data or records to effectively support delivery of Servicing Support Processing Solution (Optional Task Milestone 3).

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C.2.3 Operating Elements and Related Requirements

FSA seeks an Optimal Processing Solution addressing functions across the full lifecycle of student financing, from application to pay-off or default, inclusive of FAFSA/Eligibility Determination, Origination & Disbursement Processing, and Servicing Support Processing (inclusive of default processing). Potentially no single technology product can provide solutions for all required functions, but rather a set of modular solutions that are seamlessly integrated (e.g., the transfer from origination to servicing should use common data definitions without data loss or errors).

C.2.3.1 Operating Element 1/Milestone 1: Eligibility Processing. FSA seeks a more efficient and effective solution that shall accurately and efficiently determine eligibility for federal financing, based on applicable laws and regulations, by in-taking and processing various data sources for eligibility determination and calculates an Expected Family Contribution (EFC). The EFC data is then disseminated to financial aid offices at postsecondary schools who uses the data to determine student aid financing through various grants and loans and performs analysis for various uses by FSA and its partners.

Currently, FSA utilizes a “cycle” approach to allocating aid to the school year students plan to attend. As a result, each cycle provides the vendor an opportunity to updating the application, incorporate regulatory changes, and make other desired changes. Planning and development for the upcoming FAFSA cycle currently begins in October of each year (e.g., October 2019). That FAFSA cycle is a 21-month period that begins with the release of the application into production in October of the following year (e.g., October 2020) and maintained through the end of June, 21 months later (e.g., June 2021).

Lastly, the FAFSA cycle undergoes close out activities for approximately 2-3 months. Thus at any given time 3 different active FAFSA cycles are underway: 1) Planning and development for an upcoming FAFSA cycle can take up to 12 months, October through September), 2) Production of the current FAFSA cycle (21 months, October through June) and 3) Close out of the previous FAFSA cycle (2-3 months, July through September). FSA welcomes proposals for a more nimble and flexible platform whereas changes can be easily, efficiently and quickly incorporated on a desired functional release schedule.

Outcomes

Solution shall meet outcomes and associated targets, supporting FSA’s vision and goals that will be incorporated into the OPS Contract as Service-Level Agreements (SLA). These outcomes include, but are not limited to:

Flexible and adaptive solution: how quickly (i.e., number of days) eligibility rules can be modified on the solution

Minimal error rate: share of applicants who receive the correct EFC

Rapid results sharing: average amount of time for an applicant’s EFC to be disseminated through the NextGen environment

Offerors shall complete Attachment “19 – Performance Measurement Template” to propose their targets for outcomes. See section L.15.4.4 for instructions on completing Attachment 19.

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1. Back-end application management: Solution shall provide back-end services (i.e., customer solutions that support customer-facing solutions) in support of the front-end execution of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Solution shall effectively integrate with the future state digital platform, through which customers and partners will primarily engage with FSA, including the application portion of the lifecycle of student financing.

a. Solution shall provide back-end infrastructure required to process student data submitted through multiple channels, including web, mobile, and paper forms, in addition to third-party software applications via Electronic Data Exchange.

b. Solution shall receive and implement FAFSA changes and error fixes requested through the digital platform, or other channels, by applicant, FSA, partners (e.g., schools), or designated vendors.

c. Solution shall provide back-end services and data to enable application status and plain language rationale for notifications or rejections to be tracked and accessible to applicants and other approved parties.

d. Solution shall expose relevant services through FSA-designated solutions, e.g., Responsive Web Applications (RWA), Enterprise Service Bus (ESB).

e. Solution shall include the back-end functionalities to enable a demonstration tool to be made available through the digital platform to enable FSA staff or contact center agents to demonstrate to applicants, school partners, or other relevant parties how to use the solution, in addition to a debugging tool that enables the recreation, identification, and testing resolution of technical issues in a simulated production environment.

2. Eligibility determination: Solution shall receive completed applications, perform edits, execute matching, accurately calculate the Expected Family Contribution (EFC), and conduct verification selection.

a. Solution shall collect and process new, renewal, or correction applications based on eligibility rules.

b. Solution shall process inputs from federal agencies, other existing and future FSA solutions, and other internal and external sources.

c. Solution shall provide, support and maintain the federal agency matching operations as per the matching agreement cycles.

d. Solution shall provide singular view of a student’s history with FSA (multi- year applicant data).

e. Solution shall enable eligibility rules to be easily modified as needed by FSA staff or designated parties without requiring a major system overhaul and at no additional costs for minor changes.

f. Solution shall include the capability to re-process past eligibility determinations as deemed necessary by FSA.

g. Solution shall include demonstration, practice, and testing functionalities which can be used by FSA staff, school partners, or other designated third partners.

3. Results distribution: Solution shall generate eligibility determination results for applicants, school partners, and other authorized recipients.

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a. Solution shall enable results to be shared, as close to real-time as possible, with appropriate parties through secure file exchanges, interface files, and support the legacy APIs.

b. Solution shall have the ability to modify existing APIs or build new APIs to connect to other FSA NextGen solutions (e.g., Digital Customer Care solution).

c. Solution shall support the dissemination of the results through communications executed by separately provided solutions (e.g., digital platform, Customer Outreach and Communications, digital marketing, printing and mailing).

4. Data sharing: Solution shall ensure the secure exchange of feed files between FSA solutions and with relevant parties (e.g., but not limited to: schools, other agencies, third-party servicers, and Guaranty Agencies [GA]).

a. Solution shall apply data format, usability, access, and management standards in accordance with industry best practices and FSA requirements.

b. Solution shall provide services to enable continuous, real-time or near real-time exchanges of data with FSA’s NextGen solutions, existing FSA solutions, and external parties to support the administration of FSA programs (e.g., accessing student inquiries, enabling record requests, and reporting applications and corrections) by schools.

c. Solution shall integrate with and use existing and future Identity and Access Management solutions as determined by FSA. Refer to Section C.2.2 and Attachment “09 - FSA Identity & Access Management Solution Overview”.

d. Solution shall support problem and incident management for those issues requiring collaboration in a multi-vendor environment.

5. Statistical analysis support: Solution shall provide statistical analysis of eligibility determination rules and processing logic to ensure accuracy and consistency as well as support compliance and reporting needs.

a. Solution shall conduct analyses to drive continuous and consistent improvement of eligibility rules.

b. Solution shall prepare data samples for analysis and inclusion in reports including, but not limited to:

1. Requirements and Verification Analysis which conducts a post-mortem analysis of the effectiveness of the business rules and the verification model (by comparing an immune group to verified filers);

2. IRS Statistical Study which evaluates the accuracy of applicant reporting and determines potential Pell misallocated awards;

3. Fraud Detection Analysis which compares FAFSA data to IRS data to determine discrepancies and identifies suspicious patterns that may indicate potential fraud rings;

and

4. End of year reporting which provides end-of-year data on Title IV applicants, Federal Pell grants, and TEACH grants.

6. Development, implementation, and integration: Solution shall be designed flexibly to accommodate rapid changes and effective integration with other FSA solutions.

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a. Solution shall have a flexible architecture which can be easily and rapidly adapted for changes in eligibility requirements, data sources, and additional business rules as determined by FSA.

b. Solution shall be architected to minimize the effort and time required to implement changes each award year.

c. Solution shall maintain and provide access to the prior years of FAFSA data, in accord with federal records management regulations, in a user-friendly manner for designated users.

d. Solution shall proactively analyze applicant behavior and solution functionality to identify enhancements that could be made to realize NextGen goals.

7. Administration: Solution shall provide operational upkeep and maintenance for all aspects of the solution, including, but not limited to: operational interfaces and tools to be used by FSA staff and partners, and databases.

a. Solution shall be operated cost efficiently and at the appropriate scale as eligibility determination volume fluctuates throughout the year. Solution shall effectively work with other providers to implement required modifications for peak periods.

b. Solution shall include a robust maintenance and troubleshooting approach to ensure minimal customer and operational disruptions. Solution shall respond to, escalate, and resolve identified issues or requested modifications in a timely manner.

8. Additional Tasks:

a. Eligibility back-office processing: Solution shall efficiently execute eligibility determination and support other back-office, exception and manual activities, as assigned by ED, especially those that cannot be automated within other relevant solutions.

b. Solution shall provide processing capabilities as required by the Optimal Processing Solution.

This includes, but is not limited to: review, validation, and processing associated with aid applications, and requests for various borrower, trading partners, and FSA manual activities.

c. Solution shall provide capabilities for FSA to review, grant, and resubmit aid eligibility applications deemed ineligible that require additional manual intervention with, but not limited to: Department of Defense, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Social Security Administration and Incarcerated applicants.

d. Solution shall provide capabilities to process paper aid applications.

e. Solution shall provide capabilities to support and submit applications for re-processing as instructed by ED.

f. Solution shall provide support for school and trading partner interfaces (i.e. EDESuite, Participation Management/Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG) enrollment system) including any manual loading of software releases when applicable.

g. Solution shall provide support to resolve student identity conflicts.

h. Financial Aid Administrators (FAA) Access to CPS Online, which is currently a website used by financial aid administrators (FAA) to perform functions that assist them in administering FSA programs.

i. Solution shall enable FAA to enter or correct application data and conduct student inquiries.

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j. Solution shall enable FAA to request, view and compare Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR) and provide Identity Verification Results.

k. Solution shall include demonstration and practice functionality.

l. Solution shall provide functionality replacing EDESuites which is currently a Microsoft Access program separately installed and used by schools, enabling them to process, package, and manage Title IV student financial application, origination, disbursement and reconciliation data.

m. Student Eligibility. The Eligibility Process is a high-level business process that uses various data point inputs from within the Department’s database(s) to then produce outputs for various eligibility components. The eligibility process assists in determining both an individual student's initial and ongoing qualification for federal financial aid. The eligibility process centers on three core sub processes: provision of pre-screening financial aid history data, post-screening for changes in financial aid history data, and receipt and storage of CPS demographic data (from the processed ISIR) for institutional research.

n. Transfer Student Monitoring (TSM). In accordance with final regulations published on November 1, 2000, and on July 1, 2001, schools are required to “inform” the Department of any students who transfer in from another school during the same award year (mid-year transfer students). The Department monitors changes in the student’s Title IV data for those students and alerts the school of any relevant changes, should they occur.

o. Financial Aid History (FAH). Provision of financial aid history data are services offered by the Department to schools, Federal Loan Servicers, and GA in response to ad-hoc requests from schools, the Total and Permanent Disability Servicer, and GA.

p. Solution shall enable schools to calculate the earned and unearned Title IV financing amounts for which students are eligible (currently called “Return to Title IV” or “R2T4”).

q. Solution shall process origination and disbursement data for students receiving the following loans/types of financing: William D. Ford Direct Loans, Pell Grants, and Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education Grants (TEACH Grants).

r. Solution shall enable financial aid administrators to disburse students’ financial aid awards.

s. Solution shall permit schools to reconcile Pell, Direct Loan, and TEACH School Account Statement (SAS) to awards and actual disbursements.

t. Solution shall provide schools with a tool to measure the efficiency of origination and disbursement operations (currently called the Disbursement Measurement Tool).

u. Solution shall work with other school third-party software and mainframe systems, allowing for export and import of data to and from those systems.

v. Solution shall provide schools with the ability to create, modify, delete, and run queries (both custom and preset) on their student data in order to monitor operations, identify and correct data issues, and create output and/or selection lists.

w. Enrollment Reporting. Schools are required to report and certify the enrollment status of students who receive Title IV aid including both Title IV Grants and Federal Student Loans.

Schools report the enrollment status of students who received Title IV aid to the Department, either at the current school or at a prior school. A student’s enrollment status assists in

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determination of in-school status, grace period, deferment, subsidized loan eligibility as well as for the Department’s payment of interest subsidies. This enrollment information is provided to servicers, guarantors, and lenders of student loans.

x. Aid Overpayment Reporting. Whenever a student receives more aid than they are entitled to within the Federal Perkins Loan, Pell Grant, Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG), Iraq and Afghanistan…