Intelligence Scholars Program

The Congress has requested that the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) under his authority in Title 50 U.S.C. Sec. 403-3(c) establish through the Assistant Director for Central Intelligence/Analysis Production (ADCI/AP) a program entitled the Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program (PRISP) to recruit and train entry-level analysts and linguists with specialized skills. The program’s intent is to provide the Intelligence Community (IC) with an enhanced means to recruit intelligence officers with critical skills that the labor market does not readily provide. The Congress has authorized stipends of $25,000 per participant to a maximum of  $50,000 over two years.

General ADCI/AP Guidelines for the Program

The ADCI/AP, in consultation with members of the National Intelligence Analysis and Production Board, has determined that the program will meet the following general guidelines:

• IC components must ensure that the program retains its key objective of securing otherwise hard-to-find specialists in critical areas, while remaining sensitive to diversity issues and national in scope.
• Toward that end, the ADCI/AP will retain concurrence authority respecting the designation of critical skills and offers to prospective program participants.
• All IC agencies with analytical components will be eligible to participate.
• The term "analyst" will generally refer to those producing or directly contributing to finished Intelligence and to linguists with facility or aptitude in critical languages.
• The program will be demand-driven and will complement the hiring requirements of IC components re applicant qualifications, training, diversity issues, performance standards and security considerations.
• Participants will be required to complete 18 months of IC service in return for each year of financial support unless the hiring IC component determines that the candidate should be terminated for performance, security or other reasons.
• Participants failing to meet academic, service or performance criteria will be required to return financial incentives obtained through the program, with each component taking the initiative in accordance with applicable law.

Applicant Categories

Eligible applicant categories will be sufficiently flexible to meet individual IC component requirements. Components either can shape new or prospective hires’ education to their needs or provide a monetary incentive to facilitate immediate hiring of candidates with needed specialties. It will be open to undergraduates and/or graduate students or transfers from the private sector and to those with no more than one year of federal service who enter a directed study university program.  Community components will have several options in selecting program participants:

• They may offer graduate degree holders and those with private sector employment experience in critical skills areas an immediate position and reimburse them for their preceding two years of education costs to the maximum funding available or offered a comparable bonus.
• They may offer positions to candidates upon completion of their undergraduate or graduate studies and then fund them to pursue an additional degree program in a critical skills area provided the program commences within one year of entry on duty.
• They may offer to fund up to two years of undergraduate degree programs provided the candidates can secure an appropriate security clearance and commit to accepting a position upon completion of their studies.