In the United States Court of Federal Claims

No. 17-493

Filed: August 2, 2017

*************************************

ACCOUNT CONTROL * 

TECHNOLOGY, INC., * *

*

Plaintiff, * 

*

v. *

* 

*

THE UNITED STATES, *

*

Defendant, *

*

and *

*

PREMIERE CREDIT OF NORTH *

AMERICA, LLC, GC SERVICES *

LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, *

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT *

SYSTEMS, INC., VALUE RECOVERY *

HOLDINGS LLC, CBE GROUP, INC., *

AUTOMATED COLLECTION *

SERVICES, INC., WINDHAM *

PROFESSIONAL, INC., TEXAS *

GURANTEED STUDENT LOAN CORP., *

and ALLTRAN EDUCATION, INC. *

*

Intervenor-Defendants. *

*************************************

ORDER 

On May 19, 2017, the Department of Education issued a press release that stated the 

Secretary of the Department of Education planned to select a single student loan servicer. Court 

Exhibit A. On that date, the Government filed a Notice, informing the court that the Department 

of Education intended to take Corrective Action, by issuing an amended version of Solicitation 

No. ED-FSA-16-R-0009 and conducting a new evaluation to be completed on August 25, 2017. 

ECF 59.

On May 31, 2017, the court issued an Order continuing the May 22, 2017 Preliminary 

Injunction in the above captioned bid protest, because the court became aware of a New York Times 

article indicating that “the Administration is considering moving responsibility for overseeing 
2

more than $1 trillion in student debt from the Education Department to the Treasury Department.” 

Court Exhibit B. Such action would have rendered the bid protest before the court moot. 

Therefore, the preliminary injunction was issued to preserve the status quo, until the viability of 

the debt collection contracts at issue is resolved. See Litton Sys., Inc. v. Sundstrand Corp., 750 

F.2d 952, 961 (Fed. Cir. 1984) (“The function of preliminary injunctive relief is to preserve the 

status quo pending a determination of the action on the merits.”).

On August 1, 2017, however, the Department of Education announced that it was no longer 

seeking to select a single student loan servicer and would be pursuing a new proposal that would 

award separate contracts to one or more companies. Court Exhibits C, D. Once again, the 

Department of Justice has failed to inform the court of these developments.

Since the date of the Government’s proposed action is only twenty-three days away, the 

court orders the Government to provide the court and the parties a status report in the above 

captioned case no later than the close of business on August 4, 2017.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

s/Susan G. Braden 

SUSAN G. BRADEN

Chief Judge
Court Exhibit A
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MAY 19, 2017

Contact: Press Office, (202) 401-1576, press@ed.gov (mailto: press@ed.gov)

Today, the U.S. Department of Education formally amended Phase II of the federal student loan servicing

solicitation. The amendment maintains superior customer service and key borrower protections while ensuring the

project stays on budget, saving taxpayers more than $130 million over the next five years. The amendment further

clarifies the Department's expectations of the eventual servicer and formally lists all requirements in the

solicitation.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos issued the following statement on the new amendment:

"From day one, my priority as Secretary of Education has been to put students' needs first. This amended

solicitation does just that. It maintains superior customer service and borrower protections while increasing

oversight and protecting taxpayers.

"The federal student loan servicing solicitation we inherited was cumbersome and confusing—with shifting

deadlines, changing requirements and de-facto regulations that at times contradicted themselves. Internal and

external stakeholders both agreed it was destined for a massive and unsustainable budget overrun.

"In order to ensure the best outcome for federal student loan borrowers, it was necessary to rescind the previous

guidance to free the Department to craft a solution that was more responsive to the needs of both customers and

taxpayers.

"With changes in the new amendment, we have simplified the process to ensure meaningful borrower protections

while saving taxpayers more than $130 million over the next five years. Savings are expected to increase

significantly over the life of the contract. Borrowers can expect to see a more user-friendly loan servicing interface,

shorter email and call response times and an improved payment application method that will maximize the benefit

of each payment the borrower makes. Our amendment makes no changes to repayment plan requirements.

"I am committed to helping students meet their repayment obligations and reaching their academic goals while

also making government more effective and efficient."

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The amendment published today is the ninth amendment to the Department's federal student loan servicing

solicitation. Federal law and regulations governing the procurement process prohibited Department officials from

commenting on the new amendment until it was formally published today.

FACT SHEET: STUDENT LOAN SERVICING RECOMPETE (http://www2.ed.gov/documents/press-releases

/05192017-loan-servicing-recompete.pdf)

The full amendment is available at: https://www.fbo.gov/index?tab=documents&tabmode=form&subtab=core&

tabid=719f4f79f391241bfd02c15f36680081 (https://www.fbo.gov/index?tab=documents&tabmode=form&

subtab=core&tabid=719f4f79f391241bfd02c15f36680081)

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Court Exhibit B
https://nyti.ms/2s10GHH

Trump Administration Considers Moving 

Student Loans from Education 

Department to Treasury

By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG, STACY COWLEY and PATRICIA COHEN MAY 25, 2017

The Trump administration is considering moving responsibility for overseeing more 

than $1 trillion in student debt from the Education Department to the Treasury

Department, a switch that would radically change the system that helps 43 million 

students finance higher education.

The potential change surfaced in a scathing resignation memo sent late Tuesday 

night by James Runcie, the head of the Education Department’s federal student aid 

program. Mr. Runcie, an Obama-era holdover, was appointed in 2011 and 

reappointed in 2015. He cut short his term, which was slated to run until 2020, after 

clashing with the Trump administration and Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, 

over this proposal and other issues.
Elizabeth Hill, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, declined to 

comment on his departure or on talks with Treasury.

“The secretary is looking forward to identifying a qualified candidate to lead and 

restore trust in F.S.A.,” Ms. Hill said, referring to federal student aid.

A shift in handling federal student aid is being weighed as the Trump administration 

and Ms. DeVos consider overhauling the Department of Education. Mr. Trump’s 

proposed budget for 2018 slashes funding for the department by nearly 50 percent. 

Moving one of its core functions to Treasury would significantly diminish the 

agency’s power. It could also alter the mission of the student loan program.

“The reason the federal student aid programs live within the Education 

Department is because that’s the agency that has as its goal increasing educational 

opportunities within the United States,” said David Bergeron, who left the Education 

Department in 2013 after 35 years. “That is not the Treasury Department’s goal. Its 

job is to pay for the business of the government.”

Scrapping or shrinking the Education Department has long been a popular 

Republican goal, dating from the Reagan administration. President Trump 

embraced the idea, saying in his book “Crippled America” that the department 

should either be eliminated or have “its power and reach” cut. In February, a House 

Republican introduced a bill to terminate the agency.

In his resignation memo, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, 

Mr. Runcie said that senior members of his department had met that day with 

Treasury officials and discussed “holding numerous meetings and retreats” to 

outline a process for “transferring all or a portion” of the student aid office’s 

functions to the Treasury Department.

“This is just another example of a project that may provide some value but will 

certainly divert critical resources and increase operational risk in an increasingly 

challenging environment,” Mr. Runcie wrote.

Moving the federal student aid unit probably would require congressional 

action. But even in a fractured Congress, it could win bipartisan support.
The federal student aid office has been a lightning rod for criticism over the 

effectiveness and expense of its debt collection programs. Several government audits 

took issue with the department’s handling of its student aid programs. In 2015, for 

example, the Government Accountability Office faulted the agency for not doing 

enough to make students aware of all their repayment options. The Consumer 

Financial Protection Bureau has also pressed for changes in how the department 

manages its loan servicers.

The Education Department backs and originates $1.4 trillion in student loans. 

Since 2010, the government has directly funded the loans, cutting out the private 

lenders that previously doled out government-backed aid. But the agency outsources 

the work of collecting payments on the loans, and the companies it works with have 

a troubled record.

During the Obama administration, the idea of shifting responsibility for the 

student loan program to the Treasury Department had some supporters. As the 

number and dollar amount of student loans grew, the Education Department found 

itself managing more than a trillion dollars in assets, a portfolio bigger than most 

banks.

“The Education Department is a policy shop with a trillion-dollar bank on the 

side,” said Rohit Chopra, a former student loan ombudsman at the Consumer 

Financial Protection Bureau who also briefly worked for the Education Department.

For students, the move under consideration could simplify the convoluted 

process of applying for federal student aid and repaying loans. A growing number of 

borrowers are using income-based repayment plans, which require students to 

submit information on their earnings. Putting federal student aid in the same 

department as the Internal Revenue Service could make that easier. (A tool intended 

to help students automatically import their tax information has been disabled for 

months because of a security problem.)

“I think it’s a good idea,” said James Kvaal, a former deputy under secretary of 

education in the Obama administration. “Because the Education Department and 

the I.R.S. are separated, we’ve built these clunky systems that get in the way of 
achieving the goals of the income-based program. Linking the two would be much 

easier for students, and have stronger integrity for taxpayers.”

But critics, including a high level official from Mr. Obama’s Treasury 

Department, warned that the move could hurt students.

“Moving the agency that is supposed to provide stewardship for student loan 

borrowers to an agency that is working on a shoestring with a skeletal crew strikes 

me as a recipe for a policy disaster,” said Sarah Bloom Raskin, who was the deputy 

Treasury Secretary under President Obama.

Others worry about how students would fare under the Treasury Department.

The Treasury Department recently conducted a pilot project in which its 

employees tried to collect on defaulted loans, a job the Education Department 

contracts out to private companies.

The experiment, which began in mid-2015, did not end well.

The Treasury Department hoped to increase collection rates and help borrowers 

better understand their repayment options. It failed on both goals. A control group 

of private collectors recovered more money and got more borrowers out of default.

For now, even without the shift, some at the federal student aid office are 

rattled, according to one person who requested anonymity because he was not 

authorized to speak publicly. After Mr. Runcie resigned, at least one employee was in 

tears, the person said.

A version of this article appears in print on May 26, 2017, on Page A19 of the New York edition with the 

headline: Plan Would Shift Student Loans to Treasury. 

© 2017 The New York Times Company 
Court Exhibit C
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Court Exhibit D
DeVos abandons plan to award federal student 

loan servicing to a single company

BY ANDREW KREIGHBAUM, INSIDE HIGHER ED August 2, 2017 at 3:28 PM EDT

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 

National Harbor, Maryland, February 23, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

The Department of Education plans to overhaul its system for federal student loan servicing 

for the third time in the last year, officials announced Tuesday.

It will scrap a plan Secretary Betsy DeVos unveiled in May to award servicing of all federal 

student loans to a single company. Instead, the department will award separate contracts 

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“By starting afresh and 

pursuing a truly modern loanservicing environment, we 

have a chance to turn what 

was a good plan into a great 

one.” — Education Secretary 

Betsy DeVos

for database housing, system processing and customer service functions to one or more 

companies possibly handling direct interactions with borrowers. The department plans to 

deliver, meanwhile, on creating a single web portal for borrowers to make payments on 

student loans regardless of their borrowers — a change promised by the Obama 

administration last year and long sought by student advocates.

“Doing what’s best for students will always be our No. 1 priority,” DeVos said. “By starting 

afresh and pursuing a truly modern loan-servicing environment, we have a chance to turn 

what was a good plan into a great one.”

Current loan-servicing contracts are set to expire in 2019, but a department spokeswoman, 

Liz Hill, said officials fully expect to have the procurement completed and contracts awarded 

before then. That’s possible, she said, because of work already put into the process.

It’s not clear how many of the consumer protections included in two separate Obama 

administration memos last year — such as requirements for specialized outreach to high-risk 

borrowers — would be incorporated into the new procurement process.

The plans to have the new contracts 

awarded before current contracts expire 

met with immediate skepticism from some 

observers.

“We don’t know the details of the new plan, 

or whether it will retain the strong borrower 

protections included in the first version, but 

restarting the process midway will 

absolutely mean delaying any future improvements for borrowers who deserve a better 

experience now,” said Clare McCann, the deputy director for federal higher education policy 

with New America’s education policy program and a former Obama administration official.

The Office of Federal Student Aid contracts with multiple private companies, nonprofit 

servicers and state-based organizations to manage federal student loans. The four major 

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Blunt and Warren were part of 

a bipartisan group of senators 

who introduced legislation 

ahead of the department’s 

announcement Tuesday to 

block the single-servicer plan. 

servicers are Navient, Great Lakes Educational Loan Services Inc., Nelnet and the 

Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency.

DeVos has taken heat since May from members of Congress and representatives from the 

loan-servicing sector over the plan to pick a single servicer that would hire subcontractors to 

collect loan payments. Department officials at the time argued that the plan would make 

oversight of servicers by the government more efficient.

But the proposal found critics among both Republicans like Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, 

who argued that the system would remove choice and competition, and Democrats like 

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who warned against creating a federal contractor 

“too big to fail.”

Blunt and Warren were part of a bipartisan group of senators who introduced legislation 

ahead of the department’s announcement Tuesday to block the single-servicer plan. Their 

bill would instead require the participation of multiple loan servicers.

Wayne Johnson, the chief operating officer at the Office of Federal Student Aid since July, 

said the department’s new procurement plan would allow for the introduction of the most 

up-to-date technology and practices from the private sector into the loan-servicing system.

“When FSA customers transition to the new 

processing and servicing environment in 

2019, they will find a customer-support 

system that is as capable as any in the 

private sector,” he said in a statement. “The 

result will be a significantly better 

experience for students — our customers — 

and meaningful benefits for the American 

taxpayer.”

Representative Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican and chairwoman of the House 

education and workforce committee, has been a frequent critic of the Office of Federal 

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Andrew Kreighbaum, Inside Higher Ed

Andrew Kreighbaum is the federal policy reporter for Inside Higher Ed. Kreighbaum 

worked at The Investigative Reporting Workshop and received his master's in data 

journalism at the University of Missouri. Before getting his master's, Kreighbaum 

spent three years covering government and education at local papers in El Paso, 

McAllen and Laredo, Texas.

¬ @kreighbaum

Student Aid. A spokesman for Foxx said the department made the right decision to cancel 

the single-servicer proposal.

“Mr. Johnson is well aware of Chairwoman Foxx’s concerns with the FSA’s mismanagement, 

and moving to a single servicer does not resolve these concerns or promote competition in 

the marketplace for borrowers and taxpayers when it comes to repaying student loans,” the 

spokesman said. “Chairwoman Foxx looks forward to working with Johnson, Secretary 

DeVos and her colleagues in Congress to find a legislative solution that that ensures highquality service to borrowers.”

A task force from the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators about a 

year ago examined challenges for borrowers in the student loan servicing system.

“One of the biggest challenges we identified is the fact that there were multiple servicers 

with multiple systems,” said Justin Draeger, president and CEO of NASFAA.

NASFAA was not committed to a loan-servicing system involving either one or multiple 

servicers. Draeger said the group’s highest priority is ensuring borrowers have the same 

experience paying student loans regardless of their servicer.

Inside Higher Ed is a free, daily online publication covering the fast-changing world of higher 

education. Read the original story here.

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