Tuition Money for Service

Americans Favor Policy Change to Institutionalize Civic Engagement

In our 2008 survey, the most popular proposal was “offering every young person a chance to earn money toward college or advanced training if they complete a full year of national or community service.” This idea would mean a substantial expansion of existing education awards, which currently provide $4,725 in tuition funds for volunteers who serve full-time for a whole year (most of these positions are competitive and scarce). Sixty-nine percent strongly favored this proposal. Only 9% opposed it, 6% strongly. Support was bipartisan, with 65% of Republicans giving strong support and 75% of Democrats. All generations were supportive. The “Seniors” were by a small margin the least supportive, but they still favored it by 63% to 8.5%. A recent report showed that among many potential incentives to enlist more older Americans to make significant commitments to volunteer service, the ones that ranked by far the highest were education awards that they could earn and transfer to a child, grandchild or other needy person.11 Young adults who have never attended college were somewhat less supportive than college students (63.5% of this group versus 69% of young adults who had attended some college favored the idea strongly.)
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