Apparently, there are two reasons to go to rural Siberia. One of them involves the KGB and something called a Gulag. The other one is a prestigious, resume building experience for privileged young Americans.
It’s official: the Peace Corps is no longer limited to bearded, granola-munching outdoor education kids. What began in the 60s as an idealistic movement to aid developing countries has become a favorite post-graduation back-up plan, one that is sure to rise further in popularity now that the banking crisis has knocked everyone down a rung on the employment food chain.
To be sure, the Peace Corps isn’t the only option for students looking to delay the career search or make a difference. Teach for America, Fulbright grants, and the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET) all market themselves as exciting, non-traditional experiences for the recent grad. However, the Peace Corps is distinctive in one unique way: it doesn’t pay. While Teach for America, JET, and Fulbright participants are likely to more or less maintain their current standard of living, Peace Corps volunteers are in for a much different experience.
Volunteers receive accommodation and a stipend that allows them to “live at the local standard.” In a lot of places, this could involve a yurt. Not only do volunteers work for free, they work for free in pretty unpleasant conditions. Volunteers are usually placed in isolated rural areas, and according to the website, “Petty thefts and burglaries are not uncommon, and incidents of physical and sexual assaults do occur.”
And forget about using the Peace Corps to travel. Peace Corps policy requires that volunteers report their whereabouts when they travel away from their sites or change residences, and that they obtain authorization if they intend to leave their country of assignment for any reason. It sounds less like a volunteer program and more and more like, I don’t know, third grade or Guantanamo Bay.
If volunteers manage to last for 27 months, they’re rewarded with a completion bonus of $6,000. This works out to about $222 a month; a comparable net income to a graduate who remains at Georgetown, lives in the library, and works eight hours a week for the Corp.
The other perk is student loan repayment, which sounds good until you break it down. For every year of Peace Corps service, the government will forgive your loans at the rate of 15 percent a year. After two years, it goes up to 20 percent. However, it maxes out at 70 percent—and volunteers still have to pay the interest on their unsubsidized loans. Furthermore, it’s only valid for Perkins, National Direct Student Loans and Federal Direct Loans. All of which are government-guaranteed, need-based loans that only needy students qualify for. Those who paid for their education through private loans, a second mortgage, or credit cards can forget swapping corporate America for a yurt.
Trading your labor in exchange for the basic necessities of food, shelter, and debt repayment has a special term: it’s called indentured servitude.
The Peace Corps isn’t a bad program. Thanks to dedicated and passionate volunteers, they do good work in places that need it. But if the work of a Peace Corps volunteer is half as vital as the website wants you to believe it is, why is the government unwilling to pay the people who do it? After all, the War Corps (also known as the U.S. military) does important, dangerous work, for which they are compensated. And not just with “priceless experience”—but with actual money!
Whatever you do after graduation, be careful. The only reason they got rid of indentured servants in the first place was because slaves were so much more cost-effective.
