Mandatory Service for Young Adults

I personally like the idea. I've seen utter roughnecks from my high school come back from military service as completely changed men, way more disciplined than me. Obviously it doesn't work out all rainbows and lolipops for everyone - lots of PTSD and so forth, particularly now. But some sort of structured environment for everyone would almost have no downside. Gee's right - way too many people, especially young men, hanging out with nothing to do. Living off their parents. My brother got divorced in his late 20s, and couldn't believe how well he did on the suburban dating scene just because he had a job and his own place, i.e. not with his parents.

Something like this could really help turn the inner-cities and other poor areas around. The lack of responsibility in inner-city and poor rural men is a national tragedy.

I wonder what the Tea Party types would think? Not trying to start a fight about it, I'm honestly curious. Would they see this as taking freedom away?

 

As an RPCV, I vote no to this. Its main goal is to send *trained* people to developing countries. High-school graduates can't really advise developing countries on IT, HIV awareness, or university teacher training.

I'd be for maybe a year of mandatory service in the US, but there's no way you could awards tuition if it's mandatory. The country's broke. You can't promise two free years of education to every high school graduate. If they volunteer, sure

AmeriCorps is still going, and it offers educational stipends. Those guys sitting on their butts might want to do so. You can't make people work, and if you're the unlucky SOB who has a bunch of lazy guys with bad attitudes to work for you, God help you.

 

God bless those who intern for The Trentonian for their service to the American people.

 

These are merely procedural objections.

Make service mandatory - not branch of service. If Peace Corps requires more, and more specific, training, then draw participants from the ranks of 22- and 23-year old college sophomores and juniors and seniors. Easy.

As to whether or not a certificate for 2 years tuition would bankrupt us, two things:

- The DoD paid out $300 billion in cost overruns last year alone. $300 billion. A year. Improve DoD procurement management by 7% and you've paid for the program in perpetuity.

- Harvard's endowment alone could cover hundreds thousands of participants a year. Make "service" mandatory for some of these institutions as well. Tax deductible, certainly, but mandatory.

 

Or, you know, we could just start a massive, national infrastructure rebuilding program and these very same people could have decent jobs.

 

I think that even were jobs available, there are a lot of 18-25 year olds that wouldn't work unless it were mandatory. Just my intuition.

 

True.

But then these sorts of big government programs were the character builders for the "Greatest Generation" we hear so much about today.

 

Try to raise an army of soldiers or workers when they can't get away from Facebook.

(This is old, but this is before social networks took off)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3537300.stm

 

Again, I have no issue with mandatory service -- in the US. Peace Corps, though, doesn't fit with your model. Average age of a volunteer is 28. Your model would have excluded me. I went in at 38. Over 90 percent of volunteers have *at least* their four-year degrees.

And yes, the DoD wastes money. I understand. Doesn't mean we should throw more out the window.

You can't "make" service mandatory for "some" institutions. If it's mandatory, it has to be for everyone.

And again, you can't force people to work. Being unmotivated is a right, it seems. And when you're a community depending on a volunteer and they don't put forth the effort, you suffer. I'd rather not have an employee/mandated volunteer than one who didn't want to be there.

So no educational compensation if it's mandatory - but I'd be all for increasing the stipends for volunteers. (Although I find it unfair that A*C's educational stipend is *far more* than its cash stipend. Seems someone with no educational debt gets ripped off.)

 

Volunteers can still volunteer.

 

I like the idea, and if some or most are going into the military, this would save money in the long run, because -- as noted above -- if you have a volunteer military, the country doesn't have the same desire to get into wars.

 

Wonder if there would be a childcare exemption?

That would eliminate roughly 90 percent of the 18-to-25 year olds in our country who would actually benefit from being chucked off their ass.