The first 100 days of the Biden Administration have drawn comparisons of President Joe Biden to FDR. Both inherited nationwide problems on a scale never before seen and responded with solutions on a scale never previously attempted. Though similarities exist, important differences remain. To increase economic opportunity, FDR opted to invest in individuals, rather than gamble on institutions. The Works Progress Administration did not involve “the creation of new government machinery for supervising [its] work” because FDR wanted to “make certain that the largest possible portion of the funds allotted will be spent for actually creating new work and not for building up expensive overhead organizations here in Washington.” As a result, the administration was able to employ Americans of all walks of life and of all professional experiences in meaningful work, such as building Timberline Lodge in my home state of Oregon. President Biden, on the other hand, has proposed extensive subsidies of higher education institutions, which are already saddled by “expensive overhead” bureaucracy, and remain either out of reach or out of mind for many of the Americans who should be the target of federal assistance.

If a progressivism reminiscent of FDR’s truly guides the Biden Administration, then national service, rather than forgiveness of student debt and increased subsidies for higher education, should be the administration’s primary means of investing in young Americans. National service can help all American youth build the economic, social, and human capital that we’ve for too long assumed was a guaranteed product of higher education. Three key reasons justify prioritizing national service over further investment in the college and university system: First, higher education institutions cater to a relatively small subset of America’s population; second, degrees from these institutions increasingly serve as expensive signals to employers instead of evidence of real skills learned; and third, students too frequently drop out of colleges and universities, with poorer financial prospects than when they entered.

The allocation of federal funds to policies related to higher education is inherently regressive and exclusionary. More than one-third of young Americans miss out on any chance to receive these funds; those Americans tend to be from the communities President Biden claims lie at the center of his agenda. In October of 2020, 37.3 percent of 2020 high school graduates were not enrolled in colleges or universities, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. From a policy standpoint, missing a third of any target population is a problem. From a societal perspective, choosing to allocate funds to young Americans with some combination of academic promise, personal discipline, and familial wealth rather than those in need of greater attention and investment is damning. From a political perspective, the choice to subsidize higher education is contrary to the administration’s crusade against privilege.

Meanwhile, expected national service, as modeled by the 1989 Nunn-McCurdy “Citizens Corps” proposal, would benefit individuals from all walks of life and communities across America. After more than a year of celebrating “frontline workers,” national service would give Americans on all professional tracks—including future white-collar workers and managers—a chance to experience what it means to serve others. It’s one thing to bang pots and pans to celebrate nurses and doctors, it’s another to ensure all Americans actually work hard days and long hours for the benefit of all.

Too few Americans have the sort of cross-cultural, socio-economically and geographically diverse experience national service represents. Too frequently young Americans are placed on a track—to higher education, to a vocation, to whatever needs to be done for their family—and never given the opportunity to forge ties with Americans headed down a different route. At a time when our national story is being debated, this nationwide program would allow for the creation of a new narrative based on a common experience of serving other Americans.

Here’s an updated version of how Sen. Sam Nunn and Rep. Dave McCurdy set up their proposed service program: All young Americans who fulfill at least one year of service in their community would receive national service vouchers; these vouchers could be used to purchase housing or for higher education and would replace federal student grants and loans; Corps members would receive a $22,000 voucher for each year of service (adjusted for inflation from the original $10,000). On top of that, Corps members would receive a housing stipend for their term of service as well as an hourly wage.

Given that this service opportunity would be open to all young Americans, it’d be far less regressive than prioritizing higher education subsidies. Thus, on the whole, a national service program better aligns with Biden’s supposed policy goals. Such a program would also be more aligned with FDR’s prioritization of individual investment, rather than increasing or subsidizing overhead organizations and bureaucracy. It’s true that this payment scheme may deter some people from ever attending a higher education institution, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. For too many Americans—especially those from minority communities—higher education has been a financially ruinous forced choice. Rewarding national service with financial support for education or for a down payment on a house would allow participants, rather than the government, to chart the path to economic stability that best aligns with the individual’s goals and background.

Prioritizing investment in higher education perpetuates the faulty notion that there are two tracks in life: higher education and everything else. Decades of telling young Americans that college is the only route to financial security has propped up higher education institutions and turned degrees into expensively obtained signals of general competence, rather than rigorous academic experiences. Americans from wealthier families and backgrounds have no problem paying for this signal and the brand that may be attached to their school. For other Americans, the costs of obtaining a degree without obtaining meaningful skills is a recipe for financial trouble. By creating another route to building financial capital, national service can offer Americans more means to achieve the financial security and economic opportunity that supposedly lies at the heart of Biden’s proposals.

Now is not the time to reinforce the higher-education industrial complex. An updated “Citizens Corps” is a vastly superior approach to lifting up young Americans from all backgrounds than pouring more money into the university system. The key investment comes before, not after, higher education institutions have filtered out what tend to be non-white, poorer Americans. Additionally, the investments are freedom-generating rather than constraining. In other words, current federal subsidies of student loans lock young Americans into a specific course of action; vouchers, especially if amended to apply to more activities, permit young Americans more choice over how they’d like to plan their post-service lives.

The extent to which we invest in our young people should not hinge on their interest in attending higher education institutions that focus more on enrolling students then ensuring they graduate with meaningful skills. The fact of the matter is that no matter the carrot nor the stick, higher education is not the preferred route for many young Americans. Absent proof that those institutions are capable of graduating students of all backgrounds and equipping them with meaningful skills, national service should be the favored investment. Biden should channel the thinking he applies to other issues—meeting people where they are—and support young people at an intervention point that allows the government to empower as many young people as possible.

Biden has also made clear that equity (without defining what that means) is a motivating factor for his higher education investments. Higher education is not the right tool to close opportunity gaps between racial and ethnic groups in America. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics make clear that higher education investments are a poor way to target non-white populations: As of 2017, just 19 percent of all U.S. residents enrolled in degree-granting postsecondary institutions identified as Hispanic; 14 percent as Black; 7 percent as Asian/Pacific Islander; and, less than one percent American Indian/Alaska Native (0.7 percent to be exact, the same percentage as 1976).

Student loan and federal debt cancellation investments would miss the majority of young Americans mired in generational poverty. Even two years out from high school graduation, students from higher-income schools were 25 percent more likely to enroll in college, based on data collected by the National Student Clearinghouse in 2019. What’s more, the odds of federal funds for higher education impacting low-income Americans get worse as time goes on: whereas 89 percent of students from higher-income high schools returned to their second year in college, the same was true of just 79 percent of students from low-income schools; six years into their respective higher education paths, 53 percent of students from higher-income high schools had graduated, but a mere 21 percent of their counterparts could say the same. There’s also no guarantee that earning a higher education degree will end that cycle of poverty.

The positive impacts from a year or several years of service are much more certain than those from higher education. An expected national service program will not only provide individuals with key skills and a chance to mature; it will also build stronger civic institutions and a more tightly woven civic fabric at a time of immense disruption. Comparatively, the odds of any one student getting through their higher education program are low. The combination of those low graduation rates with the likelihood of high student debt makes any investment in higher education a gamble when it comes to actually leaving the individual better off. National service, not higher education institutions, can give all Americans deeper stocks of economic, social, and human capital. President Biden should revive the Citizens Corps and bolster the prospects of Gen-Zers and future generations without imposing mountains of debt and subsidizing institutions with skewed incentives.

Kevin Frazier is the editor of the Oregon Way, a nonpartisan online publication. He currently is pursuing a J.D. at the UC Berkeley School of Law and a MPP at the Harvard Kennedy School.