2007.09.03: September 3, 2007: Headlines: National Service: Speaking Out: Austin American-Statesman: State Rep. Juan M. Garcia writes: Swap service for an education
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2007.09.03: September 3, 2007: Headlines: National Service: Speaking Out: Austin American-Statesman: State Rep. Juan M. Garcia writes: Swap service for an education
State Rep. Juan M. Garcia writes: Swap service for an education
It's time we afforded all high school graduates a chance to follow their dreams, and to earn an education through service to their fellow Texans. It's time we challenged every young Texan with the following opportunity: Give us two years of your life. Give us two years of service as a firefighter. Two years as an emergency first responder. Two years as a student teacher, doing the most important work in America. Two years guarding our border. Two years laying fiber-optic broadband line in the rural parts of our state still without Internet access. If it's right for you (and only if it's right for you, because this is not a draft), give us two years of military service in the Texas Guard. Give us two years helping to make quality child care affordable to working families. Two years in law enforcement. Two years of service. During those two years, we're going to pay you only a subsistence wage, essentially room and board. But at the end of those two years, we're going to cover four years of tuition at any Texas college or university.
State Rep. Juan M. Garcia writes: Swap service for an education
Garcia: Swap service for an education
State Rep. Juan M. Garcia, TEXAS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Monday, September 03, 2007
Right now, young Texans across our state are struggling to find ways to finance their college education.
Since 2003, when the Texas Legislature abdicated its tuition-setting responsibility over to the non-electorally accountable Boards of Regents, there has been a corresponding spike in the price of higher education (an average campus increase of 28 percent).
All too often, it is the children of middle-class families, who earn too much to qualify for grants but not enough to keep up with the spiraling price increases, who are squeezed out of the opportunity. The "golden handcuffs" of an excessive student loan burden will prevent many talented young Texans from going into the fulfilling but lesser-paying professions they aspire to, and block the route back to their hometowns in favor of higher salaries in the largest cities.
It's time we afforded all high school graduates a chance to follow their dreams, and to earn an education through service to their fellow Texans. It's time we challenged every young Texan with the following opportunity: Give us two years of your life. Give us two years of service as a firefighter. Two years as an emergency first responder. Two years as a student teacher, doing the most important work in America. Two years guarding our border. Two years laying fiber-optic broadband line in the rural parts of our state still without Internet access. If it's right for you (and only if it's right for you, because this is not a draft), give us two years of military service in the Texas Guard. Give us two years helping to make quality child care affordable to working families. Two years in law enforcement. Two years of service.
During those two years, we're going to pay you only a subsistence wage, essentially room and board. But at the end of those two years, we're going to cover four years of tuition at any Texas college or university.
None of the programs that encourage public service (AmeriCorps, OneStar Foundation, City State, Vista and the Peace Corps) make the bold commitment that this proposal promises: a chance to earn a place at the Texas table through service to our state.
A 20-year old who has spent two years doing public service will be far less likely to fall prey to binge drinking and drugs than an 18-year old away from home for the first time. Instead, when these young people go to college, they'll appreciate the hard-earned opportunity.
Demographers project that the nation will have a shortage of 2.2 million teachers in the coming decade as the baby boomers retire. A stint teaching will encourage our best and brightest to consider a career serving in the classroom (and the absence of a crippling student loan debt will make the choice viable).
Today's young people, the "9/11 Generation," will live with a conflict that defines them in the same way that the Cold War did for their parents, and that WWII did for their grandparents. A key element in the victories won by those earlier generations was a sense of common sacrifice and shared service. This initiative will offer the opportunity to serve to all high school graduates in Texas, and reward them with the most valuable commodity available: access to education. We must shape this effort so that it makes economic sense for Texas, for its taxpayers, and for its colleges and universities. And we should do so by the time the current high school freshman class graduates.
Garcia, a Democrat, represents Corpus Christi.
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Headlines: September, 2007; National Service; Speaking Out; Texas
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Story Source: Austin American-Statesman
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; National Service; Speaking Out
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