Student Loan Repayment Assistance for Prosecutors, Defenders
As previously mentioned in Public Sector Attorney Loan Repayment; U.S. Public Service Academy, H.R. 916: John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2007 has passed the house and awaits the Senate. If that sounds a bit hazy, take this opportunity to brush up on your legislative process.
According to the bill’s sponsor, Georgia Democrat David Scott, H.R. 916 aims to do the following:
- Establishes a program of student loan repayment for borrowers who agree to remain employed, for at least three years, as State or local criminal prosecutors or as State, local or Federal public defenders in criminal cases;
- Allows eligible attorneys to receive student loan debt repayments of up to $10,000 per year, with a maximum aggregate over time of $60,000;
- Covers student loans made, insured or guaranteed under the Higher Education Act of 1965, including consolidation loans;
- Permits attorneys to enter into additional loan repayment agreements, after the required three-year period, for additional periods of service;
- Requires attorneys to repay the government if they do not complete their required period of service; and
- Authorizes $25 million per year through FY 2013 after which the program would sunset unless re-authorized.
See WSJ: Uncle Sam Wants You and Will Pay Off Your Loans
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
My goodness, Shannon, how very conservative of you! Law school is doing it’s work well….bwahahahahaha.
Come to think of it isn’t it unfair to have public universities at all, paid for in part by the tax-dollars of people you may very well one day sue or prosecute? Why should private institutions be forced to pay their own way and public freeloaders like UH and UT get an allowance from Big Daddy Government? Totally unfair.
I think in this case the undeniable social good trumps any qualms of unfairness.
Well my underlying point to the whole public prosecutor/defender ( we don’t have one in Harris County)debt forgiveness is that they are trying to encourage people to take up the jobs in public office because no one wants to do them. They encourage them to do this by forgiving their debt -say 60K. But this carrot which still ends up losing the treasury 60K one way or the other is not dangled in front of the likes of me. Which is silly I reckon because of its underlying aim.
I’m quite a conservative on many fiscal issues but not education. I don’t understand why we aren’t pouring even more money into the educational system from K-12 through to the doctoral level. A more educated workforce is less likely to committ crime, less likely to be unhealthy and the mother of them all more likely to be good great providers of taxable revenue.
To me education just like public transportation and health care are somethings that governments must invest in irrespective of the bottom line. The intangible results of those tangible investments are quite like you say undeniable social good.
But I still want my 60K carrot!
You know what I’d like? For people like me that saved up and are paying their way through college, I’d love to consider a public job but they’re not going to give me a 60K bonus because I’m not in debt. So technically speaking public jobs are encouraging debt…hmmm..I don’t think that’s fair.