How colleges can support students who want to pursue careers in public service was the focus of a forum yesterday and today at Princeton University.

Representatives of more than two dozen institutions, including Clark Atlanta, Harvard, and Louisiana State Universities, attended the event. Their focus was on attracting students to federal-government jobs, from which 550,000 employees are projected to retire in the next five years. The forum was organized by the nonprofit group Partnership for Public Service and Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. (The group also recently announced a campaign to promote federal employment to college students.)

Participants discussed institutional programs like Princeton’s Scholars in the Nation’s Service, which was established last year and pays for a master’s degree in public affairs for students who work for the federal government for two years, and Tufts University’s new loan-forgiveness plan, which helps repay the college debts of recent graduates who take public-service jobs.

A study last year found that about half of American law schools had loan-repayment programs for graduates in low-income public-service jobs. Many states also offer student-loan assistance for public-interest lawyers. And Congress recently created a student-loan-forgiveness program for low-income public-service employees. —Sara Lipka