PlainBillCongress, translated.Legislation. Context. Public interest.Referred to the Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness.
Congressional Research Service
Version 00 · Introduced in House · Sep 27, 2006
Public Service Academy Act of 2006 - Establishes, in the Department of Homeland Security, a United States Public Service Academy providing a fully subsidized liberal arts education to students selected from a pool of candidates nominated by Congress and the President. Reserves 100 first-year seats for international students, whose tuition and expenses are to be covered by their home countries.
Requires incoming students to sign an Honor Code and be at least 17 years old, unmarried, and without dependents.
Requires students to: (1) participate in daily public service programming and, during their final year, plan and implement a one-year public service project; (2) take foreign language and international relations courses in preparation for spending their junior year studying abroad and interning at a U.S. mission; (3) spend eight weeks each summer engaged in specified training and internship activities; and (4) by the completion of their fourth semester, choose a public service concentration in the economy, education, emergency management, the environment, foreign policy, health care, law enforcement, or the public infrastructure.
Showing the opening paragraphs of the official summary.
Directs the Academy to assign graduates to public service employment in their field of concentrated study, where they must serve for at least five years. Includes private nonprofit organizations and private entities deemed to meet critical national needs, among acceptable public service employers. Requires foreign students to sign an agreement with the student's home country that meets the same conditions applicable to U.S. students. Authorizes the Academy to subsidize a student's graduate education in return for an extended public service commitment.
Requires the Academy to raise 20% of its annual budget from private sources.
People & committees
Rep. Shays, Christopher [R-CT-4] · R–CT
Legislative record
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Referred to the Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness.
Referred to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Introduced in House
Introduced in House
Primary sources
Text links open the official source. We currently store references to these documents.
Source last updated: Mar 23, 2026. Consult Congress.gov for the current record.
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