GDIT Wins $122M Deal to Modernize Federal Student Aid Processing System

General Dynamics Information Technology announced that it was awarded the $121.8 million Award Eligibility Determination contract by the Department of Education to modernize the Federal Student Aid processing system. The deal calls for migrating mission-critical legacy applications to modern architecture, with the new AED system hosted in AWS GovCloud, GDIT said Tuesday.

The 10-year contract has an 18-month base period with eight one-year and one six-month option periods. The deal calls for the use of easily packaged software applications that facilitate faster development, testing and deployment.

Jylinda Johnson, GDIT vice president and general manager for government operations, said the new system will allow students to more efficiently receive federal aid to help pay for college or career school.

Under the contract, GDIT said it will build a new AED system in the cloud to replace the legacy mainframe processing system. The new system is intended to improve the overall customer experience, as well as deliver cost savings and operational flexibility to quickly scale in response to any future regulations or requirements.

On its website, Federal Student Aid said that the education department provides approximately $112 billion in financial aid to help pay for college or career school each year. It was explained that the department has been seeking ways to make funding more accessible to eligible students.