{
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    "title" : "StudentAid.gov: Using Data to Empower Borrowers |Digital.gov",
    "description": "StudentAid.gov: Using Data to Empower Borrowers",
    "home_page_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/","feed_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2015/05/27/studentaid-gov-using-data-to-empower-borrowers/index.json","item" : [
    {"title" :"StudentAid.gov: Using Data to Empower Borrowers","summary" : "It’s been a while, but in previous posts, I described what we’ve learned from operating StudentAid.gov, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Federal Student Aid website created to educate students and borrowers about the federal student aid programs and process and help them make informed decisions about financing college and career school. We first","date" : "2015-05-27T13:10:12-04:00","date_modified" : "2025-01-27T19:42:55-05:00","authors" : {"brenda-wensil" : "Brenda Wensil"},"topics" : {
        
            "customer-experience" : "Customer experience",
            "mobile" : "Mobile",
            "open-data" : "Open data",
            "product-and-project-management" : "Product and project management",
            "user-experience" : "User experience"
            },"branch" : "bc-archive-content-3",
      "filename" :"2015-05-27-studentaid-gov-using-data-to-empower-borrowers.md",
      
      "filepath" :"news/2015/05/2015-05-27-studentaid-gov-using-data-to-empower-borrowers.md",
      "filepathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/blob/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2015/05/2015-05-27-studentaid-gov-using-data-to-empower-borrowers.md",
      "editpathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/edit/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2015/05/2015-05-27-studentaid-gov-using-data-to-empower-borrowers.md","slug" : "studentaid-gov-using-data-to-empower-borrowers","url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2015/05/27/studentaid-gov-using-data-to-empower-borrowers/","content" :"\u003cdiv class=\"image\"\u003e\n  \u003cimg\n    src=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2015/05/250-x-370-Black-Mortarboard-and-dollar-Feng-Yu-iStock-Thinkstock-96226456.jpg\"\n    alt=\"A graduation cap and diploma is seen in the background, with a hand holding a calculator and a stack of hundred dollar bills in the foreground.\"/\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s been a while, but in \u003ca href=\"/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2013/09/13/studentaid-govs-1st-year-what-weve-learned-and-where-were-going/\" title=\"StudentAid.gov’s 1st Year: What We’ve Learned and Where We’re Going\"\u003eprevious posts\u003c/a\u003e, I described what we’ve learned from operating \u003ca href=\"https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/\"\u003eStudentAid.gov\u003c/a\u003e, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Federal Student Aid website created to educate students and borrowers about the federal student aid programs and process and help them make informed decisions about financing college and career school.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe first released the site in 2012, but we haven’t sat still yet! The plan has always been to create new and integrate current features that exist on other FSA websites. You may also be familiar with \u003ca href=\"https://studentloans.gov/myDirectLoan/index.action\"\u003eStudentLoans.gov\u003c/a\u003e; \u003ca href=\"http://fafsa.gov/\"\u003eFAFSA.gov\u003c/a\u003e….what can we say, we liked to create websites. That said, we understand that making the user experience more seamless is critical to breaking down barriers for students and borrowers.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSince I last wrote, we’ve come out with two exciting new initiatives—the Repayment Estimator and the ability to view federal student aid data—as well as many smaller improvements that should further empower borrowers and enrich the user experience.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith the \u003ca href=\"https://studentloans.gov/myDirectLoan/mobile/repayment/repaymentEstimator.action\"\u003eRepayment Estimator\u003c/a\u003e, we allow borrowers to plug in different scenarios so that they can better understand how various federal repayment plans impact their monthly loan payments. Users can select pre-set scenarios if they are just in the exploratory stage, or we can pull up their personal loan balances and guide them to different amounts they’d pay under different repayment plans. Sticking with the standard plan your loan servicer automatically places you in may not be your best option—get informed!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLast year we also introduced the ability to \u003ca href=\"http://studentaid.gov/login\"\u003elog in to view your aid data and history\u003c/a\u003e, straight from our National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS®). Here, you can view your federal student loan and grant balances, find out your loan servicer and interest rate, and download all your data into a text file to use as you wish. We’ve offered this view for a long time, but it was through a different website—so it was the important next step of better integrating our websites so that users can have all the information they need at their fingertips. Better yet, it is \u003ca href=\"/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/topics/mobile/\"\u003eoptimized for use on all mobile devices\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFinally, while we are constantly trying to balance limited budgetary resources to make big impact changes like those above, I want to share how we incorporate user feedback to ensure our changes work best for the customer. Recently, we’ve been renaming pages to better explain what information a user will find on them: turns out ‘Repay Your Loans’ overpromised and under delivered according to our site survey feedback, since you currently must pay loans on your servicer’s website (I know, another big project for another time!) So, we simply changed the page name to better set expectations: How to Repay Your Loans.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe also used our Google Analytics and \u003ca href=\"/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/services/search/\" title=\"DigitalGov Search\"\u003eDigitalGov Search\u003c/a\u003e data to determine that users just want to know how to get their loans forgiven (don’t we all!). As a result, we elevated our loan forgiveness pages within the site menu to make those pages more accessible. We believe it’s these types of things that can make a \u003cstrong\u003ebig\u003c/strong\u003e difference in improving the customer experience—which, working in the Customer Experience Office, is our #1 priority.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBrenda Wensil is the Chief Customer Experience Officer for Federal Student Aid (FSA). FSA’s Customer Experience Office is responsible for identifying, measuring and reporting customer expectations and satisfaction with the financial aid services and products offered at Federal Student Aid.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n"}
  ]
}