R499--RFI School Enrollment Reporting

RFI Digital GI Bill and Education Service Automation & Modernization 2 EDUCATION SERVICE DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS (VA) Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) Digital GI Bill (DGIB) and Education Service School Reporting to VBA Date: August 11, 2026 Request for Information Request for Information GI Bill and Education Service School Data Exchange with VBA Introduction: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is seeking industry input on solutions to enable secure, standardized data exchange with educational institutions in order to (1) measure the full range of outcomes GI Bill beneficiaries achieve including graduation, persistence, and post-completion employment and earnings and (2) strengthen VBA's ability to proactively identify compliance risks, including violations such as the 85/15 Rule and other indicators of fraud, waste, and abuse. Any proposed solution must minimize reporting burden on schools and training providers and be capable of scaling to accommodate new data requirements as legislative and program needs evolve. This is a Request for Information (RFI) issued for conducting market research and for eliciting industry input as to the Government s requirement to gather/obtain and communicate with educational institutions about students enrolled in the VBA s educational programs. Accordingly, this RFI constitutes neither a Request for Proposal/Quote (RFP/RFQ) nor a guarantee that one will ever be issued by the Government; furthermore, it does not commit the Government to contract for any services described herein. Do not submit a Quote/Proposal. The VA is not, at this time, seeking proposals or quotes, and therefore will not accept, review, or evaluate unsolicited proposals or quotes received in response hereto. This notice is not to be construed as a commitment on the part of the Government to award a contract/order, nor does the Government intend to pay for any information submitted because of this request. The Government does not reimburse respondents for any costs associated with the submission of the information being requested, or reimburse expenses incurred for responses to this RFI. Please do not include a price or proposal in your response. The information provided may be used by VA in developing its acquisition strategy and Performance Work Statement (PWS). Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future RFP/RFQ, if issued. Any information submitted by respondents to this RFI is strictly voluntary; however, any information received shall become the property of the Government and will not be returned to the respondent. Interested parties are responsible for adequately marking proprietary, restricted, or competition sensitive information contained in their response. This is a request for information and does not obligate the Government in any way, nor does it commit the Government to any specific course of action. Background: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), administers education benefits under the GI Bill® program, serving Veterans, servicemembers, and their dependents annually across thousands of educational institutions nationwide. These benefits spanning Chapters 30, 33, 35, and 1606 of Title 38, U.S. Code represent a significant investment in the academic and professional futures of those who have served our country. The current Digital GI Bill (DGIB) ecosystem houses VBA's claims processing systems and supporting data infrastructure. This includes the Data Mart, which houses all education (EDU) benefits data, and CorpDB, which houses all VBA data and enables VBA to produce additional on-demand reports as needed. Despite the scale and importance of these benefits, VBA currently has limited visibility into student outcomes beyond the point of enrollment certification. The data VBA receives from educational institutions today is largely transactional in nature focused on enrollment status, credit hours, and tuition costs and does not provide the longitudinal outcome data necessary to assess whether GI Bill beneficiaries are successfully completing their programs of study, persisting term over term, or achieving the academic and professional outcomes the program is intended to support. Public Law 114-315, Section 404, requires educational institutions that receive payments under the Post-9/11 GI Bill® to report academic progress to VA. Additionally, Executive Order 13607 (2012) requires VA to develop a comprehensive strategy for Servicemember and Veteran student outcome measures that are comparable, to the maximum extent practicable, across federal military and Veterans educational benefit programs. VA has previously explored outcome measure types such as retention rate, persistence rate, transfer-out rate, graduation rate, and certificate of completion, and welcomes industry input on additional or alternative approaches to satisfying these requirements. This data gap has meaningful consequences across two critical areas: Outcome Measurement VBA is committed to understanding whether GI Bill education benefits are producing positive, measurable outcomes for Veterans and their dependents not only during enrollment, but beyond it. Without reliable, standardized data from educational institutions and other authoritative sources on indicators such as graduation rates, academic persistence, program completion, and post-completion outcomes including employment and earnings, VBA cannot fully assess program effectiveness, identify areas for improvement, or demonstrate the full impact of GI Bill investments on Veterans' academic and professional success. Compliance Oversight VBA has a statutory responsibility to ensure that GI Bill benefits are administered in accordance with applicable laws and regulations, and that educational institutions participating in the program meet required standards including compliance with the 85/15 Rule and other statutory and regulatory requirements. Enhanced data exchange with educational institutions would allow VBA to proactively identify discrepancies between school-reported data and VA records, detect potential fraud, waste, and abuse earlier, and support audit and oversight functions. Beyond protecting Veterans and their dependents from bad actors within the program, this enhanced visibility would also allow VBA to recognize and champion educational institutions that consistently demonstrate strong outcomes and program compliance. To address these gaps, VBA is exploring industry recommendations and guidance on solutions that would enable secure, standardized, and scalable data exchange between educational institutions, other public and private entities and VBA. The envisioned solution would allow schools to provide VBA with structured outcome and enrollment data on GI Bill beneficiaries on a regular basis, reducing manual reporting burden on School Certifying Officials (SCOs) while significantly enhancing VBA's ability to measure program outcomes and fulfill its compliance mission. Chapter 33 / Long-Term Solution (LTS) Enrollment Manager Non-33 Benefits Manager Workload Manager GI Billie Chatbot Approval Manager Claim Information Service Associated shared services, Application Programming Interface (APIs), infrastructure, and supporting applications The environment currently operates within Amazon Web Services (AWS) GovCloud and utilizes modern cloud-native development and operations practices including: Infrastructure as Code (IaC) DevSecOps pipelines Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) Containerized microservices Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)-hosted workloads AWS managed services Agile product delivery methodologies Intellectual Property and Technical Asset Inventory As of August 1, 2026, the Government has the following employed assets to manage the educational benefits process: Asset Category Approximate Quantity Source Code Repositories 775 Databases 50 Elastic Container Registry (ECR) Repositories 239 EC2 Instances 75 Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) 8 S3 Buckets 40 Supporting Technical Documents 730+ Database technologies currently include Oracle, PostgreSQL (Structured Query Language), Redshift, and DynamoDB (Database). Artifact repositories currently contain Maven, Node Package Manager (NPM), RAW, and other build dependencies necessary to support application development, deployment, and sustainment. The environment also contains Jira project repositories, requirements traceability artifacts, operational documentation, architecture documentation, security artifacts, and infrastructure configuration data. Requirement: VBA seeks to maximize innovation, automation, and customer experience by enabling and supporting structured data exchange with educational institutions on students utilizing VA educational benefits. VBA envisions� an enhanced customer experience, improved mission outcomes and streamlined compliance processes through� a secure, scalable and 508-complaint interface. Pursuant to that vision, VBA is seeking industry input on potential solutions or services capable of delivering rapid implementation� while preserving Government oversight and accountability of the processes. The data exchange envisioned under this requirement is intended to support VBA's evolving data and oversight needs, with initial focus areas that include: Student Outcome Measurement VBA seeks to collect and analyze student outcome data from educational institutions to assess the effectiveness of GI Bill education benefits and improve program performance. Anticipated data elements include, but are not limited to: Graduation and program completion status Enrollment persistence (continued enrollment term over term) Attendance and academic progress, where tracked by the institution Program of study, anticipated graduation date, and any program changes Transfer, withdrawal status Academic standing (e.g., satisfactory academic progress) Post completion employment and salary/earnings outcomes, where available Benefit or program specific data elements tailored to individual GI Bill chapters or programs as reporting needs vary by benefit type Recommended Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs), data sharing agreements, or other arrangements with external data sources (e.g., federal agencies or other authoritative data providers) needed to support outcome measures such as employment and earnings, where such data is not available directly from educational institutions Compliance Oversight and Monitoring VBA seeks to leverage school-reported outcome data to strengthen its compliance oversight responsibilities and shift toward a more proactive compliance posture. The proposed solution or approach should support VBA's ability to: Identify discrepancies between school-reported data and VA records Proactively flag potential compliance issues, risk indicators or anomalies for review by VA staff, including patterns that may indication violations of regulations such as 85/15 rule. Support audit, reporting, and oversight functions across participating institutions Monitor institutional performance and adherence to GI Bill program requirements Recommend Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs), data sharing agreements, or other arrangements needed to support verification of school-reported data against external or authoritative sources This RFI is being issued to solicit industry input on the viability of solutioning software or a secure data sharing process that will allow educational institutions to interactively communicate with VBA requirement with all VA correspondence within RFI needs statement as well as to obtain associated data to help inform and shape a potential acquisition. The proposed contracted solution or service will: Provide a Contractor developed simplistic connection, process or other solution (e.g., API, Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), other similar web-based solution) to receive or retrieve communications bidirectionally/interchangeably between educational institutions and VBA about students utilizing VBA Educational services Support the collection of structured student outcome and enrollment data from educational institutions on a defined frequency (e.g., real-time, daily, per-term, or annual reporting) with minimal burden on School Certifying Officials and institutional data teams Include analytics and reporting capabilities that allow VBA to aggregate, analyze, and act on student outcome data across institutions, benefit chapters, and student populations Securely control, manage, and archive documents and data received from educational institutions, given that such data will contain personally identifiable information (PII) and potentially sensitive financial information Support school onboarding, training, and ongoing adoption to ensure broad and consistent participation across the educational institution community Include a managed utility/application type software or service that can provide 508 complaint customization and integration services to meet or exceed current/future 508 requirements and system interface with Government IT systems Does not create an undue hardship either financially or time for students or educational institutions to utilize or navigate the application Responses: Please submit the below requested information NLT 10:00am EST on September 11, 2026, via email only to Stephen.Winkler@va.gov. The e-mail subject line must read Digital GI Bill Education Service School Data Exchange with VBA [Insert Business Name]. VA reserves the right not to respond to any, all, or select responses or materials submitted. All VA current requirements identified herein are subject to change at any time. Questions regarding this RFI may be submitted to the same email address. VA may or may not respond directly but will consider all questions during market research. VA appreciates your time and anticipated response. As part of your RFI response, please provide the following information: General Include the following identification information: Company Name Unique Entity Identifier Number under which the company is registered in SAM.gov Confirmation of registration in VetBiz.gov if claiming Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB)/ Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB) Company Address Point of contact name Telephone number Email address Please describe your organization's experience in delivering comparable services in terms of size and scope to other Federal agencies and/or industry clients. For Federal awards, please provide the contract number and agency points of contact. Additional Questions from the Government Is your company s solution customizable to meet changing needs of the VBA i.e. formatting/ templating/security/reporting? How would your company s solution validate that 508 compliance and readability is correct and conforms to 508 industry standards? Would your company s solution contain internal quality controls and assurance checks? Is your company's solution designed to accommodate updates as compliance and security standards change or develop over time? Is your company capable of accommodating increased usage volumes from schools or students should the need arise? Is your solution subject to licensing or subscription requirements? If applicable, please specify the associated costs and indicate whether they are structured on a per-user, per-license, or monthly/yearly subscription basis. Is it necessary for the Government to acquire licenses and subsequently include students and educational institutions on an as-needed basis, or when their availability arises? What potential challenges does your company foresee in the implementation of your proposed solution(s)? What risks do you anticipate with integrating your solution(s)? How quickly could your solution be rapidly implemented? Please provide timeline/milestones? Would your solution(s) be able to provide real-time data on Key Performance Indicators (KPI s) such as number students enrolled, number of schools using the system, student on track for graduation/or graduated, attendance, etc. via a dashboard? What type of connection or security would be used to safeguard information? (API, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), SFTP etc.? Does or will your proposed solution retain and archive all student and school data? If so, what would the storage mechanism be? Would VA have ownership rights of the data? If that is not the case, what requirements must be satisfied for VA to acquire ownership? Outcome Measurement and Compliance Specific Questions: What approaches does your company recommend for proactively identifying compliance risks including potential 85/15 Rule violations and other indicators of fraud, waste, and abuse rather than relying solely on after-the-fact detection? Post-completion outcomes such as employment and earnings are generally not available directly from educational institutions. What approaches, data sources or partnerships does your company recommend for sourcing this type of data? What Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs), data sharing agreements or other arrangements does your company recommend VA pursue to support outcome measurement and compliance verification, and with which types of external data sources or agencies? What approaches does your company recommend to minimize reporting burden on School Certifying Officials (SCOs) and educational institutions for example, by leveraging data schools already report elsewhere (e.g., IPEDS, the National Student Clearinghouse, or state authorization data) rather than requiring new manual reporting? How would your proposed solution or service accommodate new or changing data requirements as legislative, regulatory, or policy changes occur, without requiring a full system redesign? VENDOR RESPONSE The vendor response shall address their company s approach to satisfy the requirements of the objectives, constraints, and requirements described in the RFI. Vendor responses shall not include proposed solutions, designs, or architectures intended for direct evaluation; instead responses should provide general experience-based insights and market research input. INSTRUCTIONS RESPONDING TO THIS RFI Interested parties are directed to respond to this RFI in Microsoft Word for Office or compatible format and shall not exceed twenty (20) pages plus a cover page. A page is defined as each face of an 8.5 x 11 sheet with information contained within a one-inch margin on all sides. The font type shall be Arial 12 point unless provided in table format. Tables can utilize Arial 10-point font. All narrative and table content count towards the 20-page limit. Proprietary information, if any, should be minimized and MUST BE CLEARLY MARKED. To aid the Government, please segregate proprietary information. POST RFI REVIEW PHASE The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) anticipates that, following the review of RFI responses, select responders may be invited to participate in face-to-face or telephonic meeting(s) with VA personnel to address further inquiries regarding their submissions. The purpose of these meetings is to obtain additional clarification of potential capabilities. The VA reserves the exclusive right to determine the necessity of any post-RFI meetings, and to choose which industry partners, if any, may be asked to provide supplementary market research information. Participation in post- RFI meeting does not indicate down selection, pre qualification, or competitive advantage in any future procurement.