A Virtual Peek Into The 80 Million Strong Summit

Living up to their reputation as a generation of civic minded activists, the Millennial-driven non-partisan coalition 80 Million Strong for Young American Jobs is currently convening in Washington, D.C. to dive into the disconcertingly high youth unemployment rate — twice the national percentage at 15.5% — along with other pressing issues such as health care and debt that face young people today. Throughout the two days, attendees are also partaking in a process of proposing, voting and physically lobbying for policies meant to address these hardships. Impressed? Intrigued? Hopeful but skeptical that this optimistic, yet pragmatic approach will really get the job, excuse the pun, done?

So was I. And with the question of how to keep an energetic youth vote engaged fresh in mind from the Personal Democracy Forum, and the threat and fear of the downturn only becoming more palpable among my peers and in my newsfeed, I tuned in with interest via the live-blog and Twitter to see just what this intersection of young people and government officials — speakers include White House Chief Economist Jared Bernstein, Former Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Current Majority Leader Steny Hoyer — would produce. So far, though the conference has stumbled through a few obstacles including tech issues and moderator difficulties, it's also stirred up some interesting ideas. A few highlights that I thought would strike a chord with Ypulse readers…

Fostering the love between young people and public service.

The top policies for public service:
1) Establishing a Public Service Academy
2) Creating a Tax-free Education Award
3) Making AmeriCorps more viable for lower-income people by raising wages

Not a surprising list of recommendations from a conference full of non-profits, but the growing appeal of the public service industry to Gen Y has undeniably spread with recent research on college students identifying healthcare, education and non-profits, as the top three industries to explore a career in, and the State Department, Teach for America and Peace Corps as the most desirable employers (for the same poll 10 years ago, Gen X chose Microsoft and Cisco). Promising?  Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior noted that 40 percent in the Department of the Interior will turnover within the next four years, as will other government agencies full of Boomers.

Equal Access to Internships

The top policies for internships:
1) Grants/loans towards summer internships don't count toward student's total aid/allowable amount
2) Government sponsored transportation/housing assistance during internships

You can't get experience without an entry level job, and you can't get an entry-level job without experience. Not so much a riddle, as the catch-22 circumstance that compels anyone with a hope of entering a competitive industry after college to seek out internships. As Youth Advisory Board member Bernadette put it in her recent post, "a rite of passage." Addressing the obstacles that prevent access is one of the more positive ways to approach the situation, meanwhile, others take a more opportunistic route.

More Than A New Curriculum

The top policies for education:
1) Community Scholars Program – free state university education for low-income students in exchange for volunteer public service.
2) Developing a curriculum to implement in high schools that includes aspects of financial literacy
3) Finding solutions to student loan/debt crisis
4) Pass the Dream Act – legal residency for undocumented students

It's a tall order, but steps like colleges offering grants to students who defer a year for public service, and President Obama proposing to sink nearly $12 billion into revamping the country's community-college system to account and provide for the rapid increase in students are promising steps toward making higher education affordable.

Vive Youth Entrepreneurship!

Top policies for youth entrepreneurship:
1) Youth Innovation Fund – government grants for young social entrepreneurs
2) Encourage creation of "Youth Entrepreneurial Resource Centers"
3) Amend the Small Business Act to include young Americans 16-29 for 7(m) micro-loans

We've come across a lot of amazing young entrepreneurs (flashback to our Totally Wired panel at Mashup) in our time, and the idea of incentivizing and enabling these types of ventures seems not only timely, but worthwhile.

Whether Congress will actually adopt the policies lobbied for by these Millennial advocates remains to be seen. But the call to action and the onus to respond is now officially out there.

Categorized under: Education

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