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Students.gov Wins "Hammer Award"

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Lisa (202) 260-5398

Students.gov, an interagency government Web site for college students, was presented a prestigious "Hammer Award" yesterday from the National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR). John Kamensky, deputy director of NPR, presented the award to the students.gov team. Students.gov was recognized for putting customers first, cutting red tape, partnering with other agencies and improving government service.

Students.gov is a one-stop shop for students who want to find federal government services and information online. At students.gov, they can register for the draft, e-file income taxes, register to vote, order postage stamps, change their address, apply for financial aid online and much more, all online. Run by the U.S. Department of Education's office of Student Financial Assistance, the site links to over 300 federal and non-governmental Web sites that provide information and services to students.

The Hammer Award is presented to teams of federal employees whose work creates a government that works better, costs less and delivers results the American people care about. The award gets its name from the $400 hammers that became the symbol of a bureaucratic, inefficient government.

Putting customers first. Instead of government as usual, students.gov provides a single, electronic portal where students can access government services they might need.

Cutting red tape. By providing online, immediate access to the government, students.gov eliminates mountains of paper, makes information available anywhere, anytime, and makes it as easy as possible for students to do business with the government.

Achieving results Americans care about. Students.gov delivers government information and services where students live - online. College students use the Internet more than anyone else in the country: 95 percent are online an average of 22 hours a week. Over 410,000 students have visited students.gov since its April 1999 launch.

Partnering with other organizations to improve government service. Students.gov makes it possible for the U.S. Department of Education and its partners - including other federal agencies, national student associations and colleges - to break down bureaucratic barriers to the federal government. This partnership lets students spend less time figuring out how to deal with the government and more time studying.

In addition to the Hammer Award, students.gov received an E-Gov 2000 Trail Blazer Award, was named a Yahoo "Site of the Week," earned a grade "A" from Education World, was cited by GSA as one of the 10 best federal government Web sites and got three stars from AOL's GovernmentGuide.com.

Students.gov was developed as part of the National Partnership for Reinventing Government's Access America initiative to use technology to bring government services to the public.

SFA is the office of the U.S. Department of Education that helps put about 8.5 million Americans through school each year by administering Title IV student loans and grants totaling about $52 billion a year. As a Performance-Based Organization, SFA strives to improve customer satisfaction while cutting the costs of administering student aid programs. For additional information on student aid, call 1-800-4-FED-AID, visit our Web site at http://ed.gov/offices/OSFAP or go to http://fafsa.ed.gov.

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