A Sharp tuition idea

John Sharp, the former Texas comptroller and now a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate used the occasion of Martin Luther King Day to propose "a new initiative to pay the college tuition of any young person who gives one year of his or her time working at a neighborhood school, a community hospital, a housing program, an environmental clean-up operation, or another approved public service project. "

Writing in the Burnt Orange Report, Sharp said America's biggest challenge is facing the competition that will come from China and other emerging economies.

"That means strengthening our educational and economic infrastructure to keep us ahead of the technology that serves as the foundation of our future progress and prosperity," Sharp writes. "We need to raise our game in education especially, starting with universal pre-K programs and basic elementary school skills so that we can do a better job of feeding our universities, which are still the best in the world. If we raise the number of American workers with high-school diplomas and college degrees, we will also raise incomes across the board. "