SOLICITATION NUMBER: RFP ED-98-R-0035
DUE DATE: February 4, 1999
POC: Contract Specialist Tony Williams, (202) 708-8602

Amendment 1 to RFP ED-98-R-0035, issued January 26, 1999, is available below as "AMEND.TXT." The purpose of the amendment is to answer questions from offerors and to make other corrections to the RFP. Also available is a revised pricing schedule - "REV_CLIN.XLS." The proposal due date remains February 4, 1999.

The U.S. Department of Education(ED) has a requirement to prepare prompt and thorough responses to correspondence from the general public concerning financial assistance programs for postsecondary students. In the past, ED's Public Inquiry Contract(PIC) has prepared these responses in addition to its other duties, which include answering telephone inquiries received through the toll-free telephone line at ED's Federal Student Aid Information Center (FSAIC). ED has decided to separate the PIC's functions into two contracts. The PIC will continue to answer correspondence concerning defaulted student loans ED holds, handle telephone lines at the FSAIC, and mail bulk orders of information materials, among other functions. This new Editorial Services contract will prepare the remainder of correspondence ED receives and perform other editorial tasks. Links to the Statement of Work, RFP, and other documents necessary to prepare a proposal are below. However, some materials necessary to prepare proposals are not available electronically and must be obtained in hardcopy form from the Contract Specialist.

Requests for copies of the RFP may be made by telephone, mail, telegram, Internet, or in person. All requests shall reference the RFP number (ED-98-R-0035) and title. Telephone requests may be placed by calling 202-708-6498. Mail or telegram requests shall be sent to the following address, U.S. Department of Education/CPO, ATTN: Yolanda Abney, Room 3616, 7 & D Streets, SW, Washington, DC 20202-4443. Internet requests may be sent to Yolanda_Abney@ed.gov. Copies of the RFP may be picked up in person on the issuing date at the above address, Room 3616. Issue date is December 18, 1998 and Closing date is February 4, 1999 at 2:00PM EST. All responsible sources may submit a proposal which, if timely received, will be considered. The dates listed herein are subject to change.

Contact Gary Weaver at (202) 401-0083 for downloading problems only.

AMEND.TXT (7K) - Snapshot of Amendment 1 to the RFP in ASCII format. Conversion to ASCII may have changed some formatting from the hardcopy.

REV_CLIN.XLS (227K) - Revised Pricing Schedule to the RFP in MS Excel format.

SOW.DOC (318K) - Statement of Work in MS Word format.

SOW.TXT (132K) - Statement of Work in ASCII format for viewing online. Conversion to ASCII may have changed some formatting; use the MS Word version for preparing proposals.

RFP.TXT (244K) - Request for Proposal in ASCII Dos Text format to allow online viewing -- Conversion to ASCII may have changed some formatting.

ATTACH.ZIP (255K) - The 3 files above and 6 additional attachments to the solicitation, in various application formats. The files have been compressed using zip utility software into this one file for easy downloading. The 9 files must be extracted using zip utility software before they can be viewed in word processing or spreadsheet applications.