Gregg Haddad

Rep. Gregg Haddad, co-chair of the Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee, led the House Tuesday in a bipartisan vote to approve legislation aimed at promoting awareness of a federal program for forgiving student loans for employees of government non-profit organizations.

“We want to promote and take advantage of a new federal student loan forgiveness program, which becomes operational this fall, to help people of Connecticut,” Haddad said. “This bill will make life a little better for working, middle-class families.”

Essentially, House Bill 7212, An Act Concerning the Promotion of Loan Forgiveness Programs, requires the distribution of material in Connecticut to let people know of this valuable federal program intended to help people burdened with student loans, Haddad said.

The legislation requires public service employers to provide informational materials about certain federal student loan forgiveness programs to newly hired employees within two weeks of their start date and certain loan forgiveness certification forms to current employees upon request.

The state Office of Higher Education would be required to create or copy federally-designed informational materials, make them available online and distribute them to public service employers. The bill defines “public service employers” as organizations, agencies or entities that are public service organizations, including local and regional boards of education.

The legislation, which now goes to the Senate, would become effective July 1.