Last month, Inside Higher Ed had a story you might have missed about a local effort to establish a U.S. Public Service Academy. Two veterans of Teach for America, Shawn Raymond and Chris Myers Asch, have put together a proposal for an elite national university modeled after the U.S. Armed Services academies (West Point, Air Force Academy, etc.), but instead of military service, students would receive a federally-subsidized education in exchange for 5 years of civilian public service. You can download their entire proposal here.

The U.S. Public Service Academy will teach students to become competent leaders with the analytical skills, academic background, and practical experience they need to think critically and flexibly about the challenges of the twenty-first century. The goal of the academic curriculum will be to engage students in a rigorous program of study devoted to free and open inquiry, free expression of ideas, and the pursuit of truth. It will offer students a broad-based liberal arts education that emphasizes a commitment to public service but maintains the academic rigor and wide-ranging intellectual experience essential to leadership development.

It’s certainly an intriguing idea, though obviously wildly idealistic — the mere thought of trying to get Congressional approval for such a grand scheme kind of makes us want to bake these guys cookies. And while it wouldn’t necessarily preclude any progress, the proposal also reveals a bit of naivete by proposing Walter Reed Army Medical Center as a potential location. Last we checked, the Feds had reserved the doomed hospital for their own purposes.