6 U.S.C. § 415 — Homeland Security Education Program

(a) Establishment The Secretary, acting through the Administrator, must set up a graduate-level Homeland Security Education Program in the National Capital Region. Its purpose is to give educational opportunities to senior federal officials and selected state and local officials who have homeland security and emergency management responsibilities. The Administrator must appoint someone to run the program's activities. (b) Leveraging of existing resources To keep the program efficient, the Administrator must use existing Department-reviewed Master's Degree curricula in homeland security — including curricula still waiting for accreditation — along with their learning materials, quality-assessment tools, digital libraries, exercise systems, and other resources, including those of the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium, the National Fire Academy, and the Emergency Management Institute. The Administrator may also create additional educational programs if appropriate. (c) Student enrollment (1) Sources: students may come from federal, state, local, and tribal governments, and other sources the Administrator names. (2) Enrollment priorities and selection criteria: the Administrator must set policies for enrollment priority and how students are chosen, matching the program's mission. (3) Diversity: the Administrator must take reasonable steps to make sure the student body reflects racial, gender, and ethnic diversity. (d) Service commitment (1) Before an employee can join the program, they must agree in writing to two things: to keep working for their sponsoring agency for two years after finishing the program, unless they are involuntarily let go for reasons other than a staff reduction; and to pay back the government's added education costs if they voluntarily leave that agency's service before the two years are up. (2) An employee who leaves the sponsoring agency for a job with another federal agency does not have to repay, unless the head of the sponsoring agency warns them, before they change jobs, that repayment will be required. If repayment is required, the sponsoring agency decides the amount, but it cannot exceed the pro-rated share of expenses for whatever time was left in the two-year period. (3) If a required payment is not made, the government can recover an amount equal to the education expenses from the employee or their estate — either by offsetting it against pay, other compensation, retirement credit, or other money the government owes the employee, or through another method the law provides for recovering money owed to the government.