Washington Monthly - September/October 2021 - 23

almost 20 years later. " What else about the world do I not understand? "
Hudson-Flege, now a research assistant professor at
Clemson University, recalls thinking.
More revelatory experiences followed. At the team's
next assignment, helping out at an elementary school in
a low-income neighborhood in Sacramento, Hudson-Flege
caught glimpses of dysfunction in the families of some of
the school kids that " made me wonder how we can make a
difference given how tough their lives are. " From there the
crew was sent to build trails in Big Sur, then to plant trees
in Salt Lake City-missions where he learned, among other
things, how to use a jackhammer. As a final project, the
team put on a three-day event for high school seniors in
Virginia City, California-an organizational challenge far
more complex than any he had ever experienced and, he
says, " a huge confidence builder for me. "
Joining NCCC required Hudson-Flege to defer an admission
he'd received from Eckerd College in Florida, which
made his parents fear he might never go to college at all. They
needn't have worried. After finishing AmeriCorps in 2003, not
only did he enroll at Eckerd, but the college doubled his merit
aid in recognition of his service. He also had a Segal AmeriCorps
Education Award, a GI Bill-type college scholarship
that AmeriCorps veterans are granted after completing a year
of service, to further defray costs. He graduated from Eckerd
four years later, debt-free.
But he wasn't done serving. After a stint in the Peace
Corps and eight years with a Catholic antipoverty nonprofit
in Cincinnati, Hudson-Flege earned a PhD from Clemson with
an on-brand thesis topic: the long-term civic engagement of
NCCC veterans. Those who entered the program with the least
interest in public service, he found, saw their interest grow the
most. These days, in addition to his research post at Clemson,
he runs a chapter of College Advising Corps, a nonprofit that
places college-educated AmeriCorps members from lowerincome
backgrounds in high schools serving lower-income
families to help students navigate the daunting college admissions
and financial aid process.
Hudson-Flege is certainly on the far edge of the " National
service can change your life " curve. In general, however,
his experience is typical. Numerous studies show that
AmeriCorps programs have positive impacts not only on a
wide range of societal problems, but also on AmeriCorps
members themselves, including helping them afford and
graduate from college and inspiring them to choose careers
in public service.
National service is also having a moment politically. The
American Rescue Plan Joe Biden signed in March included
an extra $1 billion for AmeriCorps, an amount that nearly
matches the agency's annual budget. And a key component
of the American Families Plan, the massive spending
bill Democrats want to pass via reconciliation this fall, is a
new " Civilian Climate Corps " that aims to put disadvantaged
young people, military veterans, and others to work on environmental
projects while building skills that will help them
get jobs in the green energy sector. Separately, Senator Chris
Coons of Delaware, Biden's closest friend in the Senate, has
been pushing legislation to boost the size of AmeriCorps,
from 75,000 today to 225,000. Meanwhile, the New York
Times editorial board has endorsed retired General Stanley
McCrystal's plan for Washington to create a million national
service slots.
Curiously, however, in public discussions over how much
the American Families Plan should invest to make college free,
the subject of national service almost never comes up. That's
a mistake. Massively expanding national service isn't incidental
to the goal of helping students-especially those who
need it most-get into and through college. It's key to achieving
it. And encouraging students to give something to help
make America better isn't, or shouldn't be, incidental to how
we judge the value of our public investments in higher education.
It should be central to it.
T
he fusing of college aid with voluntary national service
has been essential to AmeriCorps ever since then
Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton conceived of the idea
during the 1992 presidential race. His stump speech that year
included a promise to create a " domestic GI Bill " in which
anyone could do a year of service and receive a college scholarship.
It was " the most consistently popular applause line
of the '92 campaign, " writes Steven Waldman in The Bill, his
book on the passage of the legislation that created AmeriCorps,
which Clinton signed into law in 1993.
From very early on, however, the idea had enemies. In
1995, newly elected Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich
called AmeriCorps " coercive voluntarism " and tried to eliminate
it. That effort failed thanks to Republican Senate moderates
and the program's design, which was cleverly structured
to garner bipartisan support: Most AmeriCorps funds
flow through state-based commissions whose members are
appointed by governors, a patronage opportunity chief executives
of both parties came to appreciate. One of those governors
was George W. Bush of Texas, who, when he became
president, increased the number of AmeriCorps members
from 50,000 to 75,000. Barack Obama signed legislation authorizing
the program to grow to 250,000 members, though
he could never get Congress to appropriate the funds. Instead,
Tea Party Republicans tried to zero out its budget.
They, too, failed. So did Donald Trump in his effort to kill
AmeriCorps, despite enjoying GOP majorities in both houses
of Congress for half his term.
Because it has so frequently been in the cross hairs of
conservative budgeteers, AmeriCorps has been under enormous
pressure to justify its existence. Its programs have consequently
been subject to considerable rigorous evaluations.
Those evaluations show that when it comes to fulfilling
the pledge every new member takes to " get things done, "
AmeriCorps has been notably successful. The one-on-one tutoring
efforts its members conduct significantly boost reading
and math scores and attendance for the poor and minority stuWashington
Monthly 23
Washington Monthly - September/October 2021

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