Department of Education Office of Federal Student Aid

Qualitative & Quantitative (Q&Q) Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA)

Program Description: The U.S. Department of Education's Federal Student Aid programs are the largest source of student aid in America providing nearly 70% of all student financial aid. Federal Student Aid is financial help for students enrolled in eligible programs at participating schools (a four-year or two-year public or private educational institution, a career school or trade school) to cover school expenses including tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies and transportation. Most federal aid is need based. The three most common types of aid are grants, loans and work-study. Quantech Services Inc. is currently supporting a variety of quantitative and qualitative analyses and studies. These studies and analyses support initiatives to help improve the delivery of FSA to make it more efficient and effective.

Program Support: For Contracts and Acquisition, Quantech is currently providing Source Selection and overall cost estimating support.  Quantech analysts developed several Independent Government Cost Estimates (IGCEs) to be used by the Office of Federal Student Aid to validate proposal submissions for a large agency-wide IT solicitation.  The first IGCE allowed Federal Student Aid insight into what they should be paying for services currently being provided.  Subsequent IGCEs were developed to show expected future costs based on anticipated environment changes, as well as an estimate of the cost of transitioning from one service provider to another.  Prior to developing the IGCEs a project Cost Element Structure (CES) was created to provide a framework for capturing costs.

In addition, our analyst functions as the Source Selection Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Pricing.  Efforts included development of Request for Proposal (RFP) business proposal pricing instructions and evaluation criteria for an anticipated procurement worth several hundred million dollars.  Offeror evaluation templates were created to assist the Source Selection Evaluation Board (SSEB) with decision making by incorporating Net Present Value (NPV) and Return On Investment (ROI) calculations.   A brief training curriculum for performing Cost and Price evaluations was prepared.  

Program Support: Quantech provided the Department of Education Office of Federal Student Aid with a Cost Baseline documenting the “As-Is” Information Technology (IT) systems and initiatives to be used in assisting Federal Student Aid with determining whether or not future initiatives will result in a cost savings.  Efforts included attending several due diligence sessions at Federal Student Aid facilities to gather, analyze, and baseline Federal Student Aid IT systems costs.  Data collection efforts included interviews and meetings with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), review of all applicable Office of Management & Budget (OMB) Exhibit-300 documentation, and review and analysis of all applicable contracts relating to Federal Student Aid’s IT environment. This included identifying potential areas of weakness related to data collection and normalization, cost control, reporting and documentation within Federal Student Aid and recommending solutions for mitigating those weaknesses.  Additionally, we provided a recommendation of cost estimating software tools to potentially be implemented within FSA commensurate with the maturity of their cost estimating processes and financial management structure.  Finally, we provided a project plan and proposal for implementing a cost library repository at Federal Student Aid.   

Program Support: Quantech analysts also provided on-site full time statistical analysis support to the Office of the Ombudsman. The FSA Ombudsman uses the Ombudsman Case Tracking System (OCTS) to compile and analyze data on borrower complaints, then make appropriate recommendations. Our analysts evaluated the treatment of data elements within the OCTS system to help improve the integrity of the data collection process and provide a platform for data standardization.  Required statistical computation included:  Quarterly and Annual Student Loan Ombudsman reports and 5-year analysis for the Chief Operations Officer and in-depth research to Borrower Services by categorizing the Conditional Disability Cases, Quarterly and Monthly reports to include: “Not-Listed,” Categories, Case Activity, Collections, Direct Loans, Consolidation and Total % Permanent Disability in a dashboard design.  Additionally, we developed an Access database to show the relationships and current trends of student loans, and compare them to historical data for increased efficiency, specifically working with the “16 questions.”  Additional research was provided in specialty areas of Open Cases, Case Activity, Not Listed Categories, Top 3/ Top 5 Category Issues, Issue by School Type, and Open Loan Cancellation.  Finally, we worked with Senior Management to map the reporting structure for the implementation of the Analytics Tool in the Seibel Software package for use inside and outside the Department of Education.

Information Technology Support Services (ITSS) Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA)

Program Description: The U.S. Department of Education's Federal Student Aid programs are the largest source of student aid in America providing nearly 70% of all student financial aid. In order to meet ongoing and dynamic requirements in customer delivery, regulatory, statutory and intergovernmental objectives and compliance, support is required for ongoing development and implementation of designated IT functional areas.

Quantech Services, Inc. currently holds a recently awarded Information Technology Support Services (ITSS) Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) that includes a wide array of IT services across Federal Student Aid required by the Office of the Chief Information Officer (CIO). The scope of the BPA includes IT Planning and Investment, Process Integration and Oversight, Enterprise IT Services, Enterprise IT Management, Enterprise IT Application Development.