I 
110TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2661 
To make careers in public service more feasible for students with high 
educational debt. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JUNE 11, 2007 
Mr. SARBANES introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Education and Labor 
A BILL 
To make careers in public service more feasible for students 
with high educational debt. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Education for Public 
Service Act of 2007’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) The Nation benefits greatly from the con-
tributions of persons who obtain higher education, 
including graduate and professional degrees, and 
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then devote much of their careers to public service. 
High educational debt is an impediment that dis-
courages borrowers from pursuing low-paying public 
service employment. 
(2) In 1993, Congress created the income-con-
tingent loan repayment option to help high-debt bor-
rowers to have lower-paying public service careers. 
(3) This plan has not yet succeeded in removing 
the barriers to public service created by high edu-
cational debt. The principal problem is that bor-
rowers who elect this option do not receive debt for-
giveness until they have been paying for 25 years. 
Graduates are unable to contemplate such a long pe-
riod of repayment before their educational debts are 
forgiven. Many of them expect to be helping to pay 
for their children’s education within that period. 
(4) The goal of income-contingent repayment 
can be better achieved by reducing the option’s pe-
riod after which loans are forgiven for borrowers 
who have made ten years of monthly repayments on 
their loans while serving in full time jobs in govern-
mental or non-profit agencies. 
(5) Some borrowers are discouraged from using 
the income-contingent repayment option because it 
includes a severe ‘‘marriage penalty.’’ It attributes 
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the incomes of both spouses to each borrower 
spouse, so that when a borrower marries, the 
amount of repayment due under the option is vastly 
increased. The option can be made more equitable 
by attributing only half of the income of a couple to 
each spouse. 
(6) Making adjustments to the income-contin-
gent repayment option will improve access to higher 
education opportunities and will enable more grad-
uates to work in public service. 
SEC. 3. IMPROVEMENTS IN THE INCOME-CONTINGENT RE-
PAYMENT OPTION. 
(a) FORGIVENESS FOR PUBLIC SERVICE.—Section 
455(e) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 
1087e(e)) is amended by adding at the end the following: 
‘‘(7) REPAYMENT PLAN FOR PUBLIC SECTOR 
EMPLOYEES.— 
‘‘(A) IN
GENERAL.—The Secretary shall 
forgive the balance due on any loan made under 
this part or section 428C(b)(5) for a bor-
rower— 
‘‘(i) who has made 120 payments on 
such loan pursuant to income contingent 
repayment; and 
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‘‘(ii) who was employed for the ten- 
year period during which the borrower 
made the 120 payments described in clause 
(i), in a public sector job. 
‘‘(B) PUBLIC SECTOR JOB.—In this para-
graph, the term ‘public sector job’ means a full- 
time job in which the employer is a Federal, 
State, or local government agency or intergov-
ernmental authority, or an organization that is 
described in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal 
Revenue Code of 1986 and exempt from tax-
ation under section 501(a) of such Act. 
‘‘(8) RETURN TO STANDARD REPAYMENT.—A 
borrower who is repaying a loan made under this 
part or section 428C(b)(5) may choose, at any time, 
to terminate repayment pursuant to income contin-
gent repayment and repay such loan under the 
standard repayment plan.’’. 
(b) TREATMENT
OF MARRIED BORROWER’S IN-
COME.—Section 455(e)(2) of the Higher Education Act of 
1965 (20 U.S.C. 1087e(e)(2)) is amended by striking the 
phrase ‘‘on the adjusted gross income of the borrower and 
the borrower’s spouse’’ and inserting the phrase ‘‘on half 
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of the total of the adjusted gross income of the borrower 
and the adjusted gross income of the borrower’s spouse’’. 
Æ 
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