A GI Bill for the 21st Century: Loan Forgiveness for Public Service
After World War II, the GI Bill helped 2.2 million veterans get an education and become successful businessmen, doctors, engineers, and scientists. For every dollar invested, the country got five dollars back over the next 35 years. The GI Bill fueled the sustained post-war economic boom - and the spectacular growth of the middle class.
What we need today is a GI Bill for the 21st Century - a plan that will encourage young people to serve their country, address the challenges of the 21st century, and create sustained economic growth and strengthen the middle class.
That’s why Elizabeth Warren, Sandy Baum and I are proposing “Service Pays.” Under the Service Pays program, students who work in public service after college would have their loans forgiven.
It’s that simple: Go to college. Take out loans. Work in public service. Loans are forgiven.
A typical student would get a great education, have no student-debt at age 26, and would have spent four years serving the country and addressing some of the big challenges facing the nation.
Like the GI Bill, Service Pays has the potential to create sustained economic growth and ensure financial security for a growing middle class. Young people starting their lives and careers increasingly face financial pressures that constrain their choices - whether to attend college, where to attend, and what to do after college. Students are taking on more and more debt. Default rates are rising. Low-income families tend to forgo education because they think the debt isn’t worth it. Young people are increasingly likely to be unemployed for long periods of time. Wages are not keeping up with inflation. And young people are more likely to pay for health insurance than just a few years ago.
These pressures limit choices and constrain America’s promise. To remain competitive in an increasingly globalized, technological world, America needs well-educated people to grow the economy and have enough financial security to form the robust middle class that is central to a prosperous and just society. Service Pays would educate young people and have them free of student debt by age 26. Young people would be better educated, better able to compete in a knowledge economy, and more secure as they begin their families.
Like the GI Bill, Service Pays also rewards service, but it takes a broader view of public service - one that fits the extraordinary challenges of the 21st century. Our attempts at building governance in Iraq and Afghanistan are handicapped due to a dearth of civilians who speak local languages, understand local cultures, and have experience in post-conflict reconstruction. Around the world, our international influence wanes, and yet there are fewer people in the Foreign Service than in military bands. The bridge collapse in Minnesota and the still throbbing pain caused by Hurricane Katrina demonstrate the sorry state of our critical infrastructure, and the pressing need for its diagnosis and repair. Our schools, particularly high-need schools with minority or lower-income students, need extraordinary teachers - especially in math and science. These are but a few of the extraordinary challenges we face today.
We need people in education, public health, environmental conservation, community organizing, state and local government, the Foreign Service, intelligence, and homeland security and crisis management. The challenges we face are not the same as those faced by the Greatest Generation, but they are the challenges that have fallen to our generation to address. And we can address them, just as those who came before confronted the contests of their day.
Young people are up to the task. They are some of the most involved members of their communities. They participate in community service in extraordinary numbers. They are compassionate and patriotic. And they want results. The myth of youth as apathetic and ironic, disinterested and disengaged, is just that - a myth.
At one of America’s great universities, an inscription above the gate to campus reads: “Enter to Grow in Wisdom, Depart to Serve Better thy Country and thy Kind.” As we begin the 21st century, we should embrace this principle and lead with Service Pays.
October 16th, 2007 at 11:53 am
This is an old, but excellent idea.
A few years ago there was a similar push to have a service reqirement for 18-20 year olds. It was a means to educate young adults while at the same time using their strength and vitality as a resource in the country’s service. It was also a means to have all young adults serve their country rather than have only zealots or poorer young adults as is current in the armed forces.
October 16th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
It’s a lousy idea.
Basic economics tell us that if you want more of something subsidize it.
We certainly don’t need more government employees. Moreover, government employees, except for the military have reputation which is less than stellar.
You said “We need people in education, public health, environmental conservation, community organizing, state and local government, the Foreign Service, intelligence, and homeland security and crisis management.”
In education we have the powerful teacher’s union. Until it goes, our K-12 eduction will continue to be lousy.
Public health - hospitals are required to accept everyone thanks to federal legislation. What more could possibly be needed. Also, lets not forget that HMOs were a creation of Congress. Wonderfully received today aren’t they?
Environmental conservation - look at Atlanta. About to go into drought for a endangered species. We sure need more of that.
Community organizing - euphemism for forming yet another union.
State and local government - what they aren’t enough paid through confiscatory income and property taxes? And when was the last time a city or state did not declare it a sanctuary for illegal aliens?
The next three: Foreign Service, intelligence, and homeland security are bloated and run by incompetents. We sure need to put even more inexperienced people in there. Just think, Katrina, 9/11, Iraq, 444 days of hostage crisis, strip search at the airport. The list goes on.
Crisis management - Brittany Spears comes to mind. Along with bimbo eruptions, Senator “wide stance”, and global warming. Worthless, all of them.
In short, no more money for government make work programs. What is why we have the various welfare programs which presently consume over half the federal budget.