FREE COLLEGE IF YOU SERVE: If we expanded national service, every American could afford to seek a bachelor's degree--and have the support they need to get to graduation and into a career.

• Author: Glastris, Paul
• Position: National Civilian Community Corps

Matt Hudson-Flege was a high school senior when the 9/11 terror attacks occurred. Filled with a desire to do something for his country, he considered joining the Army, but decided he was "too much of a hippie," he recalls. Going straight to college didn't seem quite right either, though he applied to a few.

Then someone told him about the National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC), an AmeriCorps program that puts small teams of young people to work on short-term service projects at nonprofits around the country. He signed up, and soon after graduating from high school found himself working at a Salvation Army food pantry in the seedy Tenderloin District of San Francisco.

The firsthand view of urban homelessness was eye-opening for the 19-year-old from middle-class suburban Cincinnati. So too was learning to live with 10 other NCCC members from a wide range of backgrounds in a cramped halfway-house apartment. When it was his turn to cook for the group, for instance, he decided to make chili the way he had learned to growing up: just ground beef with cinnamon and other spices. The roommate he was sharing cooking duties with, a West Virginian from a single-parent family, had other ideas. Into the pot she threw beans, corn, peppers, and tomatoes.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm making chili," answered the young woman.

"That's not chili!" he exclaimed.

"Yeah it is," she replied.

After asking his other roommates, who also hailed from different parts of the country, Hudson-Flege realized that "99 percent of America doesn't eat chili like we do in Cincinnati." It was such a revelation that he still remembers the incident 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 lower-income 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...