Clinton National Service Plan to Employ 150,000

President Clinton is expected to unveil a national service proposal Friday that is larger than envisioned only weeks ago, but still likely to disappoint middle-class families who had hoped that this much-trumpeted campaign proposal would cover their crushing college costs.

At a meeting in New Orleans, Clinton is to propose a program that will employ 150,000 young people by 1997, awarding them $13,000 for college expenses in return for two years of service at low-paying, socially useful jobs. At that size, the program would be up sharply from the 100,000 slots discussed earlier this spring and the stipend would be enough to cover the average cost of two years at a state university.

But that is still far short of what Clinton talked of during the presidential campaign, when he said that all Americans ought to be able to borrow to cover their educational expenses and repay the money through public service. “Any American, without regard to income, no questions asked,” he said at one point last April.

Even when it would reach its full size in 1997, the program would give jobs to, at most, only about 3% of the 5 million students who get financial aid.

And some key congressional aides are already wondering whether national service--despite its wide political appeal--will get the seed money that Clinton wants when pressures are growing in Congress to reduce the deficit and hold down new spending. Clinton’s proposal would cost $7.4 billion over four years.

Also, the program would favor disadvantaged young people, rather than those of middle-income families, for many of the jobs because the plan gives community agencies that will run the programs the power to decide who gets the jobs. And many of those agencies are inclined, because of private grant money they receive and their charters, to prefer those who are most in need.

“The middle class’ interests got, obviously, somewhat diluted,” acknowledged Charles Moskos, a Northwestern University sociologist who was a Clinton adviser and longtime advocate of national service.

While helping the neediest may be a worthy goal, it could cause political problems for Clinton if this program--a top priority and ever-reliable campaign applause line--is not perceived as serving the interests of the broad middle class.

Already, Republicans have accused Clinton of betraying his claim to be a “new Democrat” by proposing increased taxes for middle-income workers and stressing social programs for the disadvantaged. The national service program was to be proof of Clinton’s concern about the financial anxieties of middle-income Americans.

The program’s advocates argue that it will fulfill that purpose, although it may take a while.

Will Marshall, who is president of the Progressive Policy Institute--a Clinton-affiliated think tank--and has been an adviser on national service, said that the White House is prudent to start out the program at a reasonable size.

“This is an enormously complicated undertaking,” he said. “We shouldn’t try to create hundreds of thousands of jobs overnight and risk foul-ups that would discredit it.”

Marshall contended that the national service program is a good example of Clinton’s philosophy because of the role it conceives between government and citizens.

“This is the paradigmatic ‘New Democrat’ idea, because it envisions a reciprocal relationship,” he said. “This carries the idea of civil responsibility, a quid pro quo and a move away from the entitlements politics that have literally been bankrupting the country.”

He said that, if the $13,000 does not fully cover college costs, it does represent a large down payment on those expenses. And he noted that many families try to pay for college from several sources, including savings, scholarships, loans and money earned through part-time work.

The program will offer jobs not only for students who have graduated from college but also for students who want public service employment part-time and for high school graduates. Some advocates argue that employing high school graduates can have a particularly big payoff, because it can help many young people mature before they go to college. And it can mean financial support and motivation for others--including students from poorer families--who had not considered college.

The program will put young people to work at a variety of tasks. They will work on environmental cleanup projects, as teacher’s aides, health care assistants, day care aides and police cadets, among other positions.

Another element of the proposal is a plan to allow students to take out government loans, then repay them as a small share of their income for a number of years after they graduate.

The program’s designers wrestled with how to distribute the available jobs among the many who are expected to apply. Administration officials decided that the answer was to leave the selection to the local agencies that will offer them, while requiring those agencies to comply with certain rules.

Administration officials came under pressure from organized labor to make sure that the jobs did not displace other workers. To counter that worry, the program’s federal supervisors will require proof that the jobs do not displace other hiring before they award money to agencies.