Federal Student Aid (FSA) Data Center

Aligned to goals:

• 1.2: Make more data and information available to the public.
• 1.3: Improve the timeliness of FOIA processing and document release.
• 1.5: Maintain up-to-date information on the Department's website about Department offices and key programs.
• 3.1: Enhance collaboration with other federal and non-federal agencies, the public, and non-profit and private entities.

In September 2009, Federal Student Aid established the FSA Data Center, a centralized, online source for FSA programmatic data. The Data Center, available at www.FSADataCenter.ed.gov, compiles information from across the Department in an effort to promote transparency and to increase self-service opportunities for our customers and stakeholders. The site is intended to estimate customer needs and proactively provide information to them in a useful and easily accessible way.

To that end, in creating the Data Center, we reviewed routine requests received through the press, from the Hill or through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and produced a series of new data reports to respond to the most common requests. For example, we created the Programmatic Volume Reports, which provide users both federal student loan and grant data by school on a quarterly basis. In addition, customers can easily access application, school, lender, guaranty agency, and default data as well as the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act (ECASLA) Loan Purchase Program Activity Reports on the Data Center.

As our programs evolve and the needs of our customers change, we will continuously review the data we produce and update the site accordingly. In the months ahead, we plan to begin posting Clery Act reviews and financial composite scores of schools. As these data become available, we will register them with the Data.gov website.