SOLICITATION NUMBER:RFP ED-99-R-0045
DUE DATE:September 16, 1999, 2 P.M. E.S.T.
POC:Sang Park, Contract Specialist at (202) 708-8222

UPDATE AUGUST 23, 1999

Amendment 01 to RFP ED-99-R-0045 was issued on August 19, 1999. The sole purpose of the Amendment is to remove the word "Draft" from the bottom of all pages of Attachment A, Statement of Work. Amendment 01 made no other changes to this solicitation.

The United States Department of Education has a requirement for the College Cost Study. The College Cost Study aims to discern, from a national sample of postsecondary institutions, the relation between the costs of education to institutions and the prices (including subsidies such as financial aid) paid for that education by students. On the cost side, the study considers all the elements that contribute to capitalization and operation of the institution, collecting financial and other data in whatever way the institution keeps them and rendering the information into a common framework. On the price side, the study assigns prices to all the elements that contribute to a student's quality of life while attending a college or university, and also considers the extent to which subsidies modify these prices. The first phase will be a Feasibility Study. The purpose of the first phase is to assess the possibility of formulating a model, collecting data, and undertaking the statistical analysis to address the questions Congress has requested. If the results of the first phase suggest that it is in the Government's interest to conduct the second phase, then a much larger scale data collection will be undertaken in the optional second phase of the study. The optional second phase of the study will involve a Full-Scale Data Collection effort. The method of data collection will be a computer assisted institutional data collection protocol (IDCP) that will collect data primarily found in the administrative records of the sampled institutions, augmented by interviews with institutional personnel. This study will culminate in a Congressionally mandated report to be delivered to Congress by September 30, 2002.

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-99-R-0045) 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, 7th & 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 August 17, 1999 and Closing date is September 16, 1999. All responsible sources may submit a proposal which will be considered. The dates listed herein are subject to change.

SOLICIT.ZIP (294K) - All files needed to prepare a proposal, zipped for easy downloading, including the RFP in PDF format, which retains exact formatting as the hardcopy RFP, and the Statement of Work in MS Word format. A link to the Statement of Work in HTML format is provided below for quick viewing online. The documents contained in this file are in either MS Word, MS Excel, ASCII or PDF format. Zip utility software is required to extract the 8 files from this zip file before viewing in word processor or other applications. The Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available free, is required to view and print PDF files.

RFP45.TXT (220K) - Snapshot of the Request for Proposal in ASCII format, posted for quick viewing online. Formatting changes during the conversion to ASCII. Use the PDF version of the RFP to prepare comments or proposals.

SOW45.HTML (133K) - Statement of Work in HTML format for quick viewing online. Use the MS Word version to prepare comments or proposals.

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