OLCA is available to assist Congressional offices with constituent casework inquiries related to Federal Student Aid Civil Rights Complaints and Grant inquires. Please send all casework, questions, and other requests to OLCAInquiries@ed.gov

Federal Student Aid

OLCA works with FSA to provide responses to Congressional FSA casework inquiries. The typical time frame for response is 30 days. The Department also provides information on a number of frequently asked questions. It may be helpful to reference this website prior to forwarding inquiries to ED as a number of FSA casework inquiries can be answered by information already available on our website. We recommend that Congressional staff view www.studentaid.ed.gov for information. The website includes information on loan forgiveness and cancellation, total and permanent disability, loan servicers, and FAFSA, among other things.

If however, this website does not answer your specific question, OLCA will need the following information from Congressional offices:

• constituent's name, SSN, DOB on a signed privacy release form;
• a brief description of the constituent's concerns, including any difficulty with the handling of their student loans/loans process; and
• an explanation of the constituent's specific request that includes by name the U.S. Department of Education as the "Name of Agency" for the Congressional office to contact.

Civil Rights Complaints

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is responsible for serving student populations facing discrimination and the advocates and institutions promoting systemic solutions to civil rights problems. The Office for Civil Rights enforces several Federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination in programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance from the Department of Education. For more information about the statutes they enforce visit OCR's Overview of the Agency.

An important responsibility of OCR is resolving complaints of discrimination. A number of OCR casework inquiries can be answered by information already available on OCR's website. We recommend that Congressional staff view OCR's Complaint Process for more information.

If however, this website does not answer your specific question, OLCA will need the following information from Congressional offices:

• constituent's name, SSN and DOB on a signed privacy release form;
• a brief description of the constituent's concerns, including their case number;
• an explanation of the constituent's specific request that includes by name the
  U.S. Department of Education as the "Name of Agency" for the Congressional office to contact.

Grants

OLCA works with Congressional office on grants casework inquiries. This would include information about grant opportunities and meeting requests. For more specific information regarding grants and the Congressional notification process please see our "Grants" link above for more information.