U.S. Department of Education's Office of Federal Student Aid Awards new contracts to five companies to serve borrowers, reduce delinquency, and improve accountability

The contracts are another step in the Biden-Harris Administration’s ongoing efforts to improve the student loan repayment system and help all borrowers manage their loans

April 26, 2023—The U.S. Department of Education’s (Department’s) office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) announced it has signed contracts with five companies to modernize and enhance loan servicing for more than 37 million borrowers with federally managed loans. Central Research, Inc.; EdFinancial Services; Maximus Education, LLC; Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA); and Nelnet Diversified Solutions received contracts through the Unified Servicing and Data Solution (USDS) solicitation and will implement much-needed improvements to better serve borrowers. This new loan servicing environment is part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s sweeping efforts to improve the student loan repayment system and help all borrowers successfully manage their debt.

These awards are the first step toward implementing the Department’s new servicing environment next year, which will be FSA’s long-term loan servicing solution. The new environment, is designed to provide federal student loan borrowers with a high-quality customer experience and to deliver support for at-risk borrowers so that all borrowers can take advantage of the most affordable ways to repay their loans, avoid default, and claim loan forgiveness if they are eligible for it. Vendor accountability is a central goal of the new servicing contracts, which provide rewards for better customer outcomes and impose consequences for failing to meet expectations. For example, servicers that keep vulnerable borrowers current on their payments will receive a financial performance incentive, and FSA will allocate new accounts to servicers that have proven they are able to keep borrowers current. Likewise, servicers that provide unsatisfactory or untimely service will face financial disincentives.