By Father William J. Byron SJ | Catholic News Service

"Any definition of a successful life must include service to others," said President George H.W. Bush many times before, during and after his presidential years (1989-1993). The only structural change he made in the White House organization as president was to create the Office of National Service in 1989.

President Bush appointed me while I was president of The Catholic University of America to serve on his Commission on National and Community Service, later known, under President Bill Clinton, as the Corporation for National and Community Service.

President Bush also appointed George Romney, former governor of Michigan and an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968, to serve on the Commission on National and Community Service. Romney often remarked during our meetings that civilian national service should be as "visible as the post office." 

I was reminded of that when his son Mitt was the Republican Party's nominee for president in 2012. Mitt said he would "think about" national service while he was running for the presidency, but he never did anything about it. Now that he and the president-elect are breaking bread together, perhaps they could begin a conversation about national service.

President-elect Donald Trump, so far as I know, has never said anything about national service. Now he has to learn what Thomas Jefferson knew so well, namely, the power of language in the art of leadership. And I certainly hope that, as president, Mr. Trump will find effective language to speak out in support of national service. We surely need it.

We need the elder care, child care, urban cleanups and infrastructure repair that service can provide. Public elementary and secondary education is in need of help from volunteers. We need environmental protection.

We need to expose our youth to the maturation to be gained through service. So many young people are purposeless and adrift; national service is a solution for them as well as a benefit to the nation.

Civilian national service can be delivered by organizations like AmeriCorps, Habitat for Humanity, Jesuit Volunteer Corps and Teach for America. New service organizations might emerge if the spirit of service finds its way back into American life.

In my teenage years, service meant military service during World War II. In the postwar years, those of us who served were offered educational benefits under the so-called GI Bill of Rights. For every one month spent in uniform, we were entitled to two months of free higher education. We could enroll in private or public institutions and we did so in droves.

What Mr. Trump should consider now is a national service program that gives an educational benefit to any participant who wants it. The cost of higher education is far greater now than it was after World War II. So let Congress decide the amount of the benefit. 

Perhaps a voucher worth $1,000, redeemable for tuition in any accredited college, could be given for every two months of service. And a limit of $10,000 might be placed on the amount any service provider would be given.

It could be argued that this would be a self-financing program. In function of the higher education, beneficiaries would receive higher-paying employment and therefore pay more in income taxes. Hence the program would, over time, be self-financing. That should certainly appeal to a successful entrepreneur who soon will be president. 

Jesuit Father William J. Byron is professor of business and society at St. Joseph's University, Philadelphia. Email: [email protected].