The A Chance To Serve Act expands financial, health care, and educational benefits for Peace Corps and AmeriCorps volunteers. For Peace Corps volunteers, the bill extends the period for non-competitive federal job hiring from two to three years after service, allows refugees and asylees to serve, increases readjustment allowances from $125 to $375, guarantees one year of post-service health care at Veterans Affairs facilities, and suspends federal student loan payments and interest during service while crediting service time toward loan forgiveness. For AmeriCorps volunteers, the bill requires at least 500,000 national service positions to be available, increases living allowances to 200 percent of the poverty line, extends non-competitive federal hiring eligibility to three years, provides one year of free post-service health care, doubles education awards, allows education awards to be used for career credentials, and suspends federal student loan payments during service. The bill also makes AmeriCorps and Peace Corps service eligible for federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness and makes national service education awards and living allowances non-taxable income.
Take Action
Your position
Add a comment
to comment on this bill.
Annotate the text
Highlight any passage on the Summary or Full Text tab to attach a note. Annotations appear on the Annotations tab.