A Discussion on Why Students Should not Be Forced into Participating in Community Service

It has been suggested that students should be required to complete community service hours in order to be accepted into colleges and universities. Although there is valid reasoning behind this it isn’t necessary to force everyone into community service. There are several reasons behind this: it’s been proven that taking a year off of college can inhibit people ever going and community service isn’t in the best interest of every individual.

There is a law circulating around Texas that students should be required to complete community service hours before being allowed to graduate. This forces students into falling behind on academics in order to complete community service on top of students already playing sports, being in clubs, and having jobs. This isn’t exactly volunteering, and instead is mandated service hours. This will not make students more well rounded as Trey Martinez, the initiator of this bill, writes; because the students are forced into the service instead of reaching the conclusion that they wanted to do it on their own.

It’s a statistical fact that people who take a year off college in order to pursue other alternatives are less likely to ever go to college like they originally planned to do. People will go into the workforce as volunteers and never leave because they’ll get sidetracked and never even apply to where they wanted to go as a newly graduate. As a newly graduate all the information you just learned in high school is still fresh on the brain while taking a year off for community service can cause some of that information to diminish and you be left with less than you would have.

Community service is a great idea for some people, but for others not so much. This bill in Texas suggests that military service can be used as community service. That a minimum of four years before finally going off to college. While the military can be a great way to pay for your education, it’s definitely not for everyone. And if the number of service workers increase, the number of availabilities will decrease, then some people will be forced into the military to even get to go to college. This can ultimately be very hurtful to the work force and the military, this can cause casualties from people not really wanting to be fighting for their country and less people will be back home doing the jobs that are needed that college applicants are usually doing.

While forced community service can broaden people’s minds, increase self awareness, and has several other benefits it’s ultimately not a good idea. The increasing thought that community service equals better person is holding people back from their true potential based on an idea that doing community service automatically makes you a better person. From people not ever going back to college, forced labor, and community service not being in the best interest for everyone it is not a valid option to make this into a law.