Partnership for Public Service Applauds Reps. Price and Shays for Introducing Roosevelt Scholars Bill

Bill Provides Financial Incentives for College Grads to Serve Their Country

WASHINGTON, May 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ - The Partnership for Public Service today commended Reps. David Price (D-NC) and Christopher Shays (R-CT) for introducing legislation, the Roosevelt Scholars Act of 2008, that creates an elite graduate school scholarship program with a unique payback - a commitment to serve our country in mission-critical federal jobs.

"The Roosevelt Scholars program has the potential to do for the civilian service what the successful college-based ROTC recruiting program has done for the Armed Forces - generating nearly 40 percent of all active duty officers," said Stier. "We commend Reps. Price and Shays for their innovative effort to call a new generation of talent into our federal government."

"What we're dealing with is a crisis of capacity - the government's capacity to continue providing the services that Americans depend upon," said Rep. Price. "In the face of a dwindling professional workforce, we must act now to recruit the scientists, engineers, and other high-level experts who make our government work. Our initiative would mobilize the country's colleges and universities to address this very acute challenge."

"As the cost of college and graduate studies escalate, we need to ensure public sector positions remain a viable option for our nation's best and brightest students," said Rep. Shays. "To attract tomorrow's leaders to public sector positions, we need to provide resources, like tuition assistance, in order for these jobs to compete with the salaries available to top-notch employees in the private sector. The Roosevelt Scholars program will create a new scholarship to fund graduate-level study in exchange for a federal service commitment in targeted, 'mission critical' occupational areas across the federal government. I can't think of a better investment the federal government can make than in training and invigorating its future leaders."

The Roosevelt Scholars Act would establish a nonprofit foundation to manage the scholarship program and award scholarships to graduate school students. Recipients would receive tuition, support for room and board, and a stipend for each year they are enrolled in graduate school programs consistent with a list of approved mission-critical occupations. Upon graduation, Roosevelt Scholars would be required to serve from three to five years of federal service.

According to Stier, two key factors make the legislation a win-win for both the federal government and talented young people:

• Rising education costs are pricing students out of public service. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, those completing master's degrees average $32,900 in debt and those earning doctorates and MBAs average $41,500 and $41,700 respectively in educational debt. Lawyers incur an average of $80,800 in debt, and those receiving MDs average $125,800 in student loan debt.
• The federal government is facing a hiring crisis. Nearly 193,000 mission-critical federal jobs need to be filled by September 2009. Tens of thousands of jobs - particularly in law, security and enforcement, public health, science, engineering and accounting will be available according to a Partnership report, Where the Jobs Are: Mission Critical Opportunities for America.

A 2007 Partnership for Public Service report, Making the Difference: A Blueprint for Matching University Students with Federal Opportunities called on Congress to establish a national scholarship program to persuade talented young people to enter federal service. At the same time, the Partnership launched the nation-wide public education campaign, Making the Difference, on more than 600 college and university campuses that are committed to promoting public service opportunities among their students.

For more information please visit: www.ourpublicservice.org and www.makingthedifference.org