National Guard provides a model for debtors to pay down their obligations through community service with Volunteers for America. And One Big Beautiful Bill Act holds the key.
| Opinion contributor
Defaulted student loan collection resumes
Federal student loans in default will start being sent to collections on Monday.
Fox – Fox 9
The Trump administration has announced that it will begin garnishing the wages of those who are in default on repayment of their student loans on Jan. 7.
While starting small, initially involving only about 1,000 such borrowers, the plan to reclaim what is owed the government could potentially affect 5.3 million people who are not paying down their educational debt.
Seizing up to 25% of a delinquent borrower’s earning is both cruel and unnecessary. It is blatantly performative posturing by President Donald Trump to demonstrate his anti-elitism to his MAGA base.
There are better ways to ensure that student borrowers meet their moral obligation to compensate their fellow citizens for the gift of an education. Congress should offer people with educational debts the option of repaying the government through volunteer service in their communities by passing legislation that creates Volunteers for America.
A taxpayer investment in the next generation
In the wake of World War II, returning veterans could avail themselves of the G.I. Bill, which paid for college and associated living expenses. It was thanks to those who served from a grateful nation. But it was also a taxpayer investment in the next generation, one that paid handsome societal dividends for years to come.
More recently, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program has helped more than a million student borrowers discharge their loans by working full time in public service.
There is also the Teacher Loan Forgiveness and the National Health Service Corps Loan Repayment Program. And both AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps afford graduates a way to help pay down their debts.
But all these programs have limited budgets and involve full-time employment in a much needed but limited range of jobs. These initiatives are not for everyone, nor could they accommodate every student borrower.
What is needed by most student debtors is a way to pay down their obligations through community service while pursuing their chosen careers. The National Guard provides the model.
Volunteers for America could help pay back student loans
Citizen soldiers in the National Guard devote about a weekend each month and two weeks during the summer to drills and training. They can also be called upon to provide disaster relief and are, at times, sent into combat and, more controversially, to patrol American cities.
How would Volunteers for America work to pay down students’ debts?
A newly minted second lieutenant in the National Guard, an entry-level rank for someone with a college degree, is paid roughly $8,000 a year. Student bachelor degree borrowers owe an average of more than $25,000 in federal education loans.
National Guard pay averages out to nearly $17 an hour. The estimated value to society of volunteer time is roughly $35 per hour. Depending on whether Volunteers for America participants’ time is assessed by the pay of a National Guard officer or by the value of volunteer activity to their community, the average student debtor could pay off their loan in two to four years by volunteering each weekend for eight hours.
If family and work commitments don’t permit that, participants could volunteer fewer hours per week and take longer to pay down their student debt.
Such a commitment is not that much more than that demanded of National Guard members and would be less disruptive to a student debtor’s life. Moreover, Volunteers for America participants would not risk the career-disrupting prospect of being called up for full-time, sometimes life-endangering, service.
The average volunteer in the United States currently donates only about one hour of their time each week. Volunteers for America could significantly increase the number of organized weekly volunteer hours available to help communities across the country.
There is every reason to believe that there is a large pool of potential participants in Volunteers for America, and that such volunteer opportunities would be politically popular. In 2023, in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness program, 40% of the public opposed the ruling.
At the same time, more than half of Generation Z and millennials report volunteering for nonprofits, with those holding a bachelor or graduate degree reporting the highest formal volunteer rate. Volunteers for America would appeal to the very people who are likely to have unpaid student loans.
The legislative model for Volunteers for America already exists. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act requires adults receiving Medicaid or food stamps to work, volunteer or train for at least 80 hours a month. This legislation establishes the principle, the precedent and the necessary accounting procedures that would be required so that volunteer hours could be used to repay a government-provided student loan.
As citizens we all have reciprocal obligations to one another. For those who have received advanced education through government loans, repaying that money is a responsibility. But many with student debts cannot afford to repay them.
Volunteers for America would give them the opportunity to pay down their obligations by donating their time to their communities. They deserve that option. And we all would benefit from it.
Bruce Stokes is a nonresident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
