As used in the Minority Doctoral Loan Repayment Assistance Act:

A. "department" means the higher education department;

B. "eligible institution" means an accredited institution of higher education that offers a doctoral degree-granting program in the fields of engineering, physical or life sciences, mathematics or other academic disciplines in which ethnic minorities or women are demonstrably underrepresented;

C. "loan" means a grant of money pursuant to a contract between a recipient and a lender requiring repayment of principal with interest. A lender may include the federal government, a bank or the state; and

D. "recipient" means an individual who is a member of an ethnic minority or is a woman and who has successfully completed a doctoral degree-granting program at an eligible institution in the field of engineering, physical or life sciences or mathematics or another academic discipline in which ethnic minorities or women are underrepresented.

History: Laws 1990 (1st S.S.), ch. 8, § 3; 1991, ch. 262, § 24; 1994, ch. 79, § 2; 2017, ch. 83, § 3.

The 2017 amendment, effective June 16, 2017, defined "loan" and "recipient", removed and revised the definitions of certain terms as used in the Minority Doctoral Loan Repayment Assistance Act; in the introductory clause, after "Minority Doctoral", added "Loan Repayment", and after "Assistance", deleted "Loan for Service Program" and added "Act"; deleted former Subsection A and redesignated former Subsections B and C as Subsections A and B, respectively; in Subsection A, deleted "'commission'" and added "'department'", after "means the", deleted "commission on", and after "higher education", added "department"; in Subsection B, after "means", deleted "a commission approved" and added "an accredited", and after "ethnic minorities", deleted "and" and added "or"; deleted former Subsections D and E, which defined "sponsoring institution" and "student"; and added new Subsections C and D.

The 1994 amendment, effective May 18, 1994, inserted "Act" following "Program" in the introductory language, deleted "located outside the state of New Mexico" following "higher education" in Subsection C, and made stylistic changes in Subsections D and E.

The 1991 amendment, effective June 14, 1991, substituted "Loan for Service Program" for "Act" in the introductory paragraph.