New Mexico Governor and Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson announced a proposal to cut student loans if college graduates complete a year of community service, a plan that some AU students said they support, but question whether Richardson would follow through with it.
"As part of your college loan structure ... we'll pay them off if you give your country one year of national service: work in a forest, clean up a forest ... work in a hospital, go in the military, go in the Peace Corps," Richardson said during a speech in New Hampshire last week, according to The Washington Post.
The deal is part of Richardson's extensive platform on education, which includes scrapping No Child Left Behind and raising starting teachers' salaries to $40,000, according to his campaign Web site.
Other candidates seldom discuss education, Richardson said.
"Nobody talks about education. It's not at the top of the polls," Richardson said, according to the Post. "I happen to think this is the most important issue facing our families - economic development and competitiveness."
Yuhao Chen, a first-year graduate student in the Kogod School of Business, said he would participate in the program but cautioned that Richardson's other issues should be considered before voting for him.
"I don't think this issue is the most important factor for supporting a candidate," Chen said.
Marcy Fink Campos, director of the Community Service Center, was excited to hear about the proposal and joked that she "would almost vote" for Richardson because of the plan. Tuition costs are outrageous and a program like this would help ease the financial burden, she said.
"[Doing community service] would take a long time to pay off college costs, but it's worthwhile," Campos said.
The proposal might encourage students to do more community service on their own, said Amy Pucino, the service learning coordinator at the Community Service Center. Peace Corps and AmeriCorps currently offer financial incentives to student volunteers, Pucino added.
Students who choose to work for the Peace Corps after graduation are eligible for loan deferment. Also, students with Perkins loans can have 15 percent of their loan canceled for each full year of service for the first two years and 20 percent per year for the third and fourth year of service, according to the Peace Corps Web site.
Volunteers who successfully complete service in AmeriCorps are eligible to receive a Segal AmeriCorps Education Award to pay educational expenses at qualified institutions. The award is $4,725 for a year of full-time service, according to the AmeriCorps Web site.
Another Democratic presidential candidate, former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., also has a plan to help college students pay for college. In 2005, he started a College for Everyone pilot program in Greene County, N.C., an area with low educational attainment, according to Edwards' campaign Web site. The program, which requires students to work part-time, pays for the first year of tuition, fees and books at North Carolina universities and community colleges. According to his Web site, Edwards plans to expand this program to more than 2 million students enrolling in public colleges across the country.
Whether Richardson, Edwards or any other candidate keeps their promise is another issue entirely.
"It's nice that [Richardson is] thinking about college students," said Tess Fulton, a sophomore in the college of Arts and Sciences. "But if he didn't keep his promise, I wouldn't be surprised"
