Harvard Goes to Washington? Not Anymore

For more than two centuries, we are told, Harvard was the nursery of statesmen.

In 1776, more than twice as many signers of the Declaration of Independence were Harvard graduates than were graduates of any other school. In 1963, more congressional representatives had been educated at Harvard than at Yale and Columbia--the runners-up--combined.

Graduates from the '50s, '60s, and even the '70s remember an exodus to Washington, D.C. every June, as newly-minted Harvard B.A.'s flocked to Capitol Hill and various government agencies. The College was a major conduit for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), while public figures as varied as John F. Kennedy '40 and Ralph Nader (Harvard Law, 1958) surrounded themselves with bright, hopeful recent graduates.

Today, however, things are changing. Harvard may once have nurtured public men and women, but the number of students from the Class of 2000 who are heading to D.C. next year to begin political or governmental careers can be counted on the fingers of your hands--with maybe a few toes thrown in.

Even the students who dedicated themselves to politics during their undergraduate careers are forsaking Capitol Hill. Of the dozen or so seniors on the Student Advisory Committee (SAC) at the Kennedy School of Government's Institute of Politics (IOP), none will be taking government jobs next year.

Neither will the two former presidents of the Undergraduate Council who will graduate with the Class of 2000.

Apart from Harvard's plentiful crop of Truman scholars--who are obliged to take a governmental job in D.C. for the summer, at least--it's difficult to find anyone who'll be working inside the Beltway.

And this trend comes at a time when Washington is graying.

Thirty percent of the federal government's 1.6 million employees will be eligible to retire in five years. Among the highest ranks of the civil service, 65 percent will be qualified to start drawing pensions as early as 2004.

Confronted with this picture, it's not hard to see where stereotypes about today's college students come from. We're supposedly all self-interested, career-driven and politically apathetic. We've turned our backs on the public sphere and want to make our first million before we're 25.

Of course, it's not that simple. Students are graduating from college with heavier debt loads than ever before (see story, page xx), and the booming economy has made lucrative and prestigious jobs available for recent graduates with little or no training. Furthermore, some say Washington is no longer the best training ground for aspiring politicians just out of college.

Nevertheless, Washington will face a talent vacuum in the first part of the 21st century, and it doesn't look like Harvard students will be there to fill it.

Political Disillusionment

The observation that today's college students are disenchanted with politics is yesterday's news.

Poll after poll shows that despite a growing participation in volunteer work--feeding the homeless, teaching, religious service, environmental work--college-age students are losing faith in the power of the government to solve the nation's problems.

A survey of 800 college students released in January by California's Panetta Institute, a think tank headed by former White House Chief of Staff Leon V. Panetta, showed that students are less likely to vote than the population at large. Fewer than six of 10 turned out to vote in the presidential election of 1996.

Only 8 percent say that politics is the best way to make a difference for society, as compared to the 32 percent who named education or 22 percent for non-profit work.

The IOP found much the same thing in their April survey. Voluntarism among college students is high--around 60 percent--but only 17 percent chose to direct their energies to a governmental or issues-based organization, and a scant 7 percent joined a political campaign.

A stunning 64 percent say they do not trust the federal government to do the right thing most of the time.

"Where I teach," says Richard Zweigenhaft, a sociologist at Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C., "fewer and fewer students seem to think government is capable, or likely, to solve the kinds of problems they are most concerned about."

Perhaps this is not surprising, just months after the sordid conclusion of the Monica S. Lewinsky trial and the Elian Gonzalez circus. Washington is a little tattered around the edges right now, and students notice.

"One reason I didn't go into politics right away was because I didn't like some of the things that were happening in politics," says Byron J. McLain '00, outgoing chair of the IOP's Student Advisory Committee. Next year, McLain will be working as a management consultant at McKinsey & Co. in Atlanta, Ga.

C. J. Mahoney '00, McLain's vice chair, will also be taking a two-year McKinsey post. As with his classmate, the decades of debate characterizing federal politics as corrupt, inefficient or just plain evil has taken its toll.

"Once you're labeled a political person, it can be hard to maintain credibility. Maybe it's not fair, but that's sometimes the perception," he says.

The Lure of the Private Sector

Political apathy is not the only factor driving students away from careers in politics and government, however. Disgust and disillusionment may push some out of politics, but the enticements of private sector jobs lure still more away.

As the American economy enters its seventh year of uninterrupted growth, the competition for Harvard-educated employees is only intensifying. Graduates fresh out of school, with almost no experience and no concrete skills, can earn $50,000-$60,000 their first year--more if they have technical skills.

For students graduating with suffocating loan debt, such incentives can be hard to turn down. McLain admitted he took his job in consulting partly due to the desire to pay off his loan.

"It's hard to pay off your loans on a government salary," acknowledges Anna B. Benvenutti '00, one of just a few who plan to work on Capitol Hill or in a federal agency in the fall.

Even the University was concerned that students were too circumscribed by their loan debt, contributing to across-the-board increases in financial aid in 1998.

"Part of the reason Harvard went through its financial aid program was because the institute feared that students were making career choices based on their abilities to pay back loans," says William Wright-Swadel, director of Harvard's Office of Career Services (OCS).

Even for the less-than-needy, the lure of a job in management consulting or investment banking can be hard to turn down.

Careers in business seem particularly hip and prestigious right now, especially as the rise of dot-coms and venture capital firms have brought a new sense of adventure and excitement.

"Let's face it," Wright-Swadel says. "Politics is not exactly what you'd call a glamour career. Harvard students are used to exploring career paths in which prestige is part of the outcome, and I'm not sure politics is seen as a prestigious environment right now."

Part of the distaste for political careers is no doubt related to the distaste for politics in general, but some say politics and government just don't offer appealing careers.

"The opportunity to have leadership over your own work exists more in the private sector. In a campaign, you begin as the bottom man on the totem pole," Mahoney says.

Besides, students--usually the ones taking the much-vilified two-year consulting and financial jobs--say the private sector offers students an ideal education for public life.

Some, like Shannon May '99-00, say that the financial training she will receive at Goldman, Sachs in New York will provide her with the training she needs to be a viable leader for a non-profit organization.

Others, like McLain, cite their movement to the business world as an opportunity to return to the regions in which they grew up--and possibly consider representing politically someday.

McLain, who was instrumental in the IOP's voter registration efforts and was involved in the Harvard College Democrats in addition to heading up SAC, says that "I definitely see myself getting into politics later in life" despite his move into the private sector.

For McLain, a native of New Orleans, La., being in the South was a major incentive. Not only is his family in the region, but he says he's interested in staying in touch with the developments of the New South--whether or not he eventually runs for office.

"There's a new interest in going into local politics. One of the things that I'm going to do next year is some volunteering," McLain says.

Greased Paths

Sometimes, though, you have to wonder.

Is everyone who is drawing an exorbitant salary in New York really thinking about the useful experience that they can turn towards running a non-profit or directing the State Department?

Every student knows someone embarking on a lucrative career in banking or consulting who is graduating without a dime in debt. Money, more than ever, is a sign of prestige--especially in the so-called high-tech economy.

Students talk in incredulous but admiring whispers about the senior whose parents are paying for her apartment in New York despite her consultant's salary, or the computer science concentrator to whom Trilogy--an Austin, Texas-based e-commerce firm--offered a cool $200,000 plus benefits.

In light of salaries like that, all the talk about learning opportunities and gaining valuable business experience can sound like just so much hot air.

Benvenutti, who worked in Washington last summer for Common Cause, a nonprofit citizen's lobbying organization, raised a skeptical eyebrow at the suggestion that one goes into business to learn about politics, or into the private sector to learn about the public.

"My understanding is that you need experience on Capitol Hill to get anywhere in D.C.," she says. "People

may move from working somewhere near the Hill to working in an agency and then to a nonprofit, but you need to be in D.C."

The students heading to Goldman, Sachs or McKinsey like to talk about the experience they will gain, the loans they have to repay, and the excitement of the job, but no one mentions the inflated salaries or the ease of the job search.

And it is an easy search, Wright-Swadel points out. "It's not always easy to get the job, because some of these firms are very prestigious," he says, "but it's easy to participate in the process."

Unlike students in other industries, who must interview in person for mere handfuls of positions offered at unpredictable times, prospective investment bankers and management consultants can sign up for interviews from the comfort of their dorm rooms, and need only to trek across campus to meet the recruiter.

"We get complaints when interviews are 'all the way up in Hilles,'" less than a mile north of campus," Wright-Swadel says.

The situation could not be more different for the students who intend to enter political, governmental or non-profit jobs. Many still haven't found positions--and it's not for want of searching.

In most industries, positions are seldom offered more than a few months before they must be filled.

"It's very hard to get a job in D.C. in advance," says Benvenutti, who will be looking for a job on Capitol Hill, the Federal agencies, or even a Washington nonprofit. For some jobs, she says, she has found that "you need to have a full transcript before you can even apply."

Given these choices, Wright-Swadel acknowledges, it's not surprising that students are flocking to consulting or financial management jobs.

"Greased pathways are hard to ignore," he says. "The choices available to seniors are both wonderful and terrible if you don't have the time to sift through them."

These high-paying, prestigious jobs are "a terribly attractive option without a lot of thought on the part of the student. That's the curse of it for us here at OCS," Wright-Swadel says.

Yet, he adds, there isn't much a career services department can do.

"Students get upset at us because we don't bring 50 newspapers and government agencies to recruit on campus the way the big financial firms do," he says. "They just don't realize that most of the working world doesn't hire people that way."

Showing Some Initiative

Some students headed into the private sector say they haven't lost interest in politics but simply postponed their entrance into the public sector.

According to Judy Murray recruiting program director at OCS "in some ways it's easier to go from business to government than the other way around."

Wright-Swadel agrees, saying he's seen many students attempt to combine their interests in government and business, both at Harvard and as graduates.

"In the five years I've been here I certainly see more students incorporate community services as a part of their life," Wright-Swadel says. "Even students interest in business ask about the proportion of time they could spend doing pro bono work."

Other graduates are heading into political work on a different path--through non-profit work.

Jeannie V. Lang '00, another member of SAC, is taking next year to expand a small start-up non-profit organization that helps under-privileged youngsters get to college. The organization, Get Ready! works with churches, schools and families to provide free SAT prep and college/financial aid advising to under-served urban high school students.

"For the time being, my interest in public service has shifted to the non-profit sector," Lang says, "but I don't know that that is permanant. My main interest in politics and the IOP has always been how government works as an agent in people's lives; it can have such a huge effect."

At the IOP, she adds, she focused her efforts on the institute's Community Action Committee, which combined community service with grassroots activism and politics proper.

Praising Lang's efforts, McLain pointed out that "she's someone who might have gone to Washington five years ago, but now she's starting her own non-profit."

"Even people who aren't 'selling out' are pursuing leadership in nontraditional ways. Our class is doing more innovative things with regard to leadership," he says.

Teaching is also seeing something of a renaissance, as programs like Teach for America raise the profile of profession.

"As trite as it sounds, I really wanted to make a difference," says former Undergraduate Council Vice President Kamil E. Redmond '00, who will be teaching in Baltimore, Md., for two years before entering Yale Law School.

Redmond, like the many other college students surveyed by the IOP and the Panetta Institute this year, says she believes hands-on service work makes more of an impact than the bureaucratic "paperwork" of government agencies.

Furthermore, as Guilford College's Zweigenhaft points out, many of the men and women he interviewed with William Domhoff for his 1998 book, Diversity in the Power Elite, ended up in the upper echelons of the civil service only after many twists and turns along their career paths.