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The 1998 Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA) established a performance-based organization to administer the Federal Student Aid programs at the U.S. Department of Education. These programs include Pell grants, Stafford loans, PLUS loans, and the "campus-based" programs: Federal Work Study, Perkins loans, and Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity grants. This webpage will keep you abreast of the changes to our organization and our progress in reinventing these important programs, which provide almost $91 billion of financial aid a year to college students.
Chief Operating Officer: James Manning (Acting COO)
Federal Student Aid's Performance
- We are pleased to provide our Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 Performance Plan
(PDF) and our FY 2006-2010 Five-Year Strategic Plan (PDF). - Federal Student Aid's FY2008 Annual Report (PDF 4.5MB) presents sections on our mission, organization, programs, and performance.
How we serve the public
- Applying for Federal Student Aid grants, loans and work-study costs nothing! Approximately 15 million students use the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) each year, and many of them apply on the Web at FAFSA on the Web.
- The Federal Student Aid Information Center helps students complete the application and provides the public with free information about our programs. You can call 1-800-4-FED-AID to speak to a specialist about our student aid programs, or visit Financial Aid for Students, which has our popular print publications online, as well as helpful database resources.
- The Direct Loan Program includes Stafford and PLUS loans and is run by the Department of Education. The Direct Loan website offers a variety of interactive tools for students, including a repayment calculator and direct access to loan account information. Stafford and PLUS loan funding for the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program comes from private lenders.
- We maintain a robust collection of technical documents for financial aid administrators, lending institutions, auditors, and other organizations at Information for Financial Aid Professionals.
- Also for financial aid professionals is PEPS, the information system for Federal Student Aid. At the PEPS website you'll find hotline information and what's new in PEPS and Case Management. There's also downloadable weekly extracts of selected PEPS fields, connectivity instructions, and security forms to request new user IDs. The site offers the Case Management and Oversight (CMO) weekly institutional updates and the PEPS training guides.
- The students.gov website is the U.S. Government-wide initiative to deliver electronic, web-based services from government agencies and organizations to postsecondary students. We are taking a lead on this initiative and are developing and testing services related to web-based student financial aid.
- We have established an Ombudsman's office to assist borrowers in resolving student loan issues.
- The HEA authorizes an "experimental sites" initiative that allows schools that apply and qualify for participation to use alternative methods to meet some of the requirements for administering the Federal Student Aid programs. See the website for more information.
Information for Financial Aid Professionals | Financial Aid for Students | Direct Loans | TFAP | Archives