83-C for Repayment Plan Option

PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT

CHANGE WORKSHEET

Agency/Subagency U.S. Department of Education/Federal Student Aid		OMB Control Number 1845-0014
	Enter only items that change Current Record	New Record
Agency form number(s)	N/A	N/A
Annual reporting and record keeping hour burden
Number of respondent	660,000	(no change)
Total annual responses	660,000	(no change)
Percent of these responses collected electronically	6%	(no change)
Total annual hours	217,800	(no change)
Difference		(no change)
Explanation of difference		N/A
Program change adjustment		N/A
Annual reporting and record keeping cost burden (in thousands of dollars)
Total annualized capital/startup costs	0	0
Total annual costs (O&M)	0	0
Total annualized cost requested	0	0
Difference		0
Explanation of difference		0
Program change adjustment		0
Other change** The collection currently approved under 1845-0014 is the Repayment Plan Selection (RPS form) for the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) Program. Direct Loan borrowers use the RPS form to select an initial repayment plan before they enter repayment on their loans, or to request a change from their current repayment plan to a different repayment plan. One of the repayment plan options included on the RPS form is the Income-Based Repayment (IBR) Plan. In accordance with the terms and conditions of the IBR Plan, if a borrower who selects this plan is married and files a joint federal income tax return with his or her spouse, and if the spouse also has federal student loans that area eligible to be repaid under the IBR Plan, certain information about the spouse’s federal education loans is required in order to determine the borrower’s eligibility for the IBR Plan and the monthly IBR payment amount. (See 34 CFR 685.221(a)(4) and (b)(2)(ii)). The borrower’s Direct Loan servicer may obtain the necessary information about the spouse’s loans from the U.S. Department of Education’s (the Department’s) National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS). To enable the servicer to obtain this information from NSLDS, the currently approved RPS form collects the name and social security number (SSN) of the borrower’s spouse. Due to an oversight, the Department failed to include an additional data element requesting the spouse’s date of birth (DOB). Although the Direct Loan servicers may obtain information about a spouse’s loans from NSLDS using only the spouse’s name and SSN, this is true only if the servicer is requesting information for one individual. To obtain loan information from NSLDS for multiple individuals at the same time (known as submitting a “batch request”), the Direct Loan servicers must provide each individual’s name, SSN, and DOB. The requirement to include all three identifiers when submitting batch requests is an NSLDS safeguard intended to ensure that the loan information provided pertains to the correct individuals. For greater efficiency, the Direct Loan servicers need the ability to submit requests for NSLDS loan information on multiple individuals at the same time. Therefore, the Department is requesting approval to modify the RPS form by adding a new data element in Section 3 to collect the DOB of the borrower’s spouse. As explained above, this data element was inadvertently omitted from the RPS form when it was submitted for OMB clearance in 2010. The requested change is not substantive, and because it will have no significant impact on the time required to complete the RPS form, there is no increase in the burden associated with this collection. The Department notes that a similar form used by Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program borrowers to request the IBR Plan (FFEL Program IBR Request, approved under OMB No. 1845-0102) collects the name, SSN, and DOB of the borrower’s spouse. The requested change will make the Direct Loan RPS form consistent with the corresponding FFEL Program form.
Signature of Senior Official or designee:	Date:	For OIRA Use _________________________________ _________________________________

**This form cannot be used to extend an expiration date

OMB 83-C