ED Releases Student Loan Debt Collection Contract Performance Report for 2012

The U.S. Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid (FSA) division last week announced to its private debt collection contractors the results of its quarterly performance competition for the 2009 contract.

It has been well over a year since ED last released the results.

Performance results are determined by a weighted average of contractors’ performance in total dollars collected; total accounts serviced, and total administrative resolutions. ED awards 70 points to the top performer in the dollars collected category. Twenty points are awarded to the top performer in the total accounts serviced category, while the top performer in administrative resolutions receives 10 points. The other agencies are scored against the top performers in each category.

The scores are very important to contractors as they determine the bonuses each company receives for a quarter and for the fiscal year.

ED released the results for the 2012 fiscal year which ended September 30, 2012. The results were organized by the four quarters of the fiscal year.

For the fiscal fourth quarter 2012 (ended Sept. 30, 2012), Pioneer Credit Recovery was the top scoring collection agency in the unrestricted category with a score of 97.25. The Sallie Mae subsidiary was followed closely by FMS Investment Corp. (94.63), ConServe (93.77) and NCO Group (92.34).

The ED contract performance results are divided into two categories: small businesses and unrestricted. There are currently five small business collection contractors and 17 collection agencies in the unrestricted category.

For the same period in FY 2012, Coast Professional topped the small business category with a perfect score of 100, far ahead of second place finisher Collection Technology, Inc. (78.83).

Interestingly, Coast Professional was perfect in every quarter in FY 2012, scoring a 100 in each period. Their winning margin each quarter was also at least 20 points.

The collection agencies on ED’s private debt collection contract also appear to be collecting more now. For example, in the three month period ended June 30, 2011, the 22 collection agencies recovered a total of $496.8 million for FSA. But a year later, in the three months ended June 30, 2012, the same agencies brought in a total of $669.4 million.