Clinton Issues Call to Service

Invoking he legacies of presidents from Thomas Jefferson to John F. Kennedy '40, President Clinton yesterday asked Americans to join him in a "great national adventure" as he announced a new national service initiative.

The program, which would allow college students to repay governmental loans by working in public service jobs, elicited praise last week from Harvard President Neil L. Rudenstine, who said that "conceptually, it's good."

"There's an awful lot of hand-tooled custom tailoring that has to go on," Rudenstine said. "Fortunately, there are quite a few good programs in place already around the country...and I think if the government chooses to build quite a bit on those and go about it in a way of gradually scaling up...then it has a good chance of working."

In his speech at Rutgers University, Clinton marked the 32nd anniversary of the Peace Corps by offering to reform the system of federal financial aid to students, saying he hoped to create a grassroots effort and calling his plan "nothing less than the American way toe change America."

"The spirit of service is sweeping this country and giving us a chance to put the quilt of America together in a way that makes strength out of diversity; that lifts us up out of our problems; and that keeps our people looking toward a better and brighter future," Clinton said. "This is going to be your program at your level with your people."

The specifics of the Clinton plan include an initial commitment of $15 million this year for a pilot project that would create 1,000 summer jobs for college students. Over the next four years, the government would invest $7.4 billion to create more than 100,000 public service jobs by 1997.

The proposed program is significantly smaller than the one Clinton originally described during his campaign. Still, it will be far larger than the Peace Corps, which at its height enrolled 16,000 people, according to Clinton.

"We'll ask young people all across this country and some who aren't young who want to further their col- lege education to serve in our schools as teachers or tutors in reading and mathematics said. "We'll as you to help our police forces across the nation members for a new police corps that will walk beats and work with neighborhoods and build the kind of community ties that will prevent crime from happening in the first place so that our police officers won't have to spend all their time chasing criminals."

But Clinton said he did not want to create "a national bureaucracy." He said he hoped to establish a new system of direct loans to students, eliminating $4 billion worth of administrative expenses and loan defaults and allowing borrowers to repay their debt as a percentage of their future income, rather than in fixed installments.

"We should begin by making it easier for young people to pay back their student loans and enabling them to hold jobs that may accomplish much, but pay little," he said.

Jobs Should Be Worthwhile

According to Rudenstine, who spoke with The Crimson about Clinton's plan in an interview last week, the initiative will be successful if the jobs it creates are worthwhile.

"In order to work, the jobs have to be real and the students have to feel they're real and there has to be enough training and enough of a good match between what the students are interested in doing and what the job is," Rudenstine said. "Otherwise it just won't click. If the jobs aren't real, the people will feel bored."

But Rudenstine said he did not believe those critics of Clinton's plan who have said that is will deter minority students and those from low-income backgrounds from attending graduate school

But Clinton said he did not want to create "a national bureaucracy." He said he hoped to establish a new system of direct loans to students, eliminating $4 billion worth of administrative expenses and loan defaults and allowing borrowers to repay their debt as a percentage of their future income, rather than in fixed installments.

"We should begin by making it easier for young people to pay back their student loans and enabling them to hold jobs that may accomplish much, but pay little," he said.

Jobs Should Be Worthwhile

According to Rudenstine, who spoke with The Crimson about Clinton's plan in an interview last week, the initiative will be successful if the jobs it creates are worthwhile.

"In order to work, the jobs have to be real and the students have to feel they're real and there has to be enough training and enough of a good match between what the students are interested in doing and what the job is," Rudenstine said. "Otherwise it just won't click. If the jobs aren't real, the people will feel bored."

But Rudenstine said he did not believe those critics of Clinton's plan who have said that is will deter minority students and those from low-income backgrounds from attending graduate school