Accenture win means it keeps $966M student loan contract

Accenture Federal Services has won a 10-year $966 million contract with the Education Department to continue operations and maintenance of the federal financial aid system.

The company has been working with the system—called the Common Origination and Disbursement system—since 2001 by providing integrated system operations, customer service, application maintenance and hosting support, the company said in a release.

The system has processed more than $1 trillion in federal student loans and grants and has generated over $130 billion in aid to more than 14 million students at 6,000 schools in 2014, Accenture said.

The Common Origination and Disbursement system supports programs such as the Pell Grant, Direct Loan, Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education Grant and the Iraq Afghanistan Service Grant.

Accenture touted the flexibility and scalability it designed into the system, which has had to responded to 36 legislative mandates since 2007, including the move to 100 percent direct lending in 2010, which doubled the system capacity in three months, according to the company.