Toni Airaksinen

Barnard College in NYC

When Melinda Dang, now a freshman at Ohio State University, started applying to colleges, she didn’t know where to begin.

“I was already feeling extremely anxious,” she told USA TODAY College. Just thinking about college applications gave her a “racing heartbeat,” and she was nervous one mistake could ruin her chances of success.

She had a good reason to worry.

Dang, the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, couldn’t ask her parents for help. Her mother barely made it through elementary school in Vietnam; her father had only a high-school degree. Dang knew the odds were stacked against her.

Then, as Dang was scrambling to figure out how to apply to college, she met Kathleen McCallops. “Ms. McCallops changed my life,” said Dang.

McCallops was an AmeriCorps college guide at John Hay High School, part of the Cleveland public school district. She provided direct college counseling to over 300 students, and college admissions workshops an additional 500 students during her two-year tenure as an AmeriCorps member

“I think it was really important to help the students because college is an extremely confusing process,” McCallops told USA TODAY College. “It’s really important to give students the tools to navigate this.”

Students like Dang sought her out often. Dang says she “signed in for appointments at least 80 times during the school year” with McCallops.

She jokes, “I feel like I bothered her way too much.” But Dang’s efforts paid off.

With the help of McCallops, Dang landed at the Ohio State University on a full ride. Her next steps? She’s applying to a five-year combined master's degree program in public health.

AmeriCorps was invaluable to Melinda Dang -- and many other students. But it’s in trouble.

According to the New York Times, the White House budget office has drafted a list of programs to axe in efforts to trim domestic spending.

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) — the federal agency that administers programs like Teach for America and AmeriCorps — is on that list.

“AmeriCorps is just one of the programs our agency administers,” said Warfield. “All of which would disappear without the existence of CNCS."

AmeriCorps deploys more than 80,000 people across America every year to engage in intensive service. Members serve in full or part-time positions over a 10-12 month period, and they receive a number of benefits in exchange for their work.

Benefits include stipends, health insurance, student loan forbearance and, after the completion of their term of service, a few thousand dollars to help pay for future schooling.

Since AmeriCorps' inception in 1993, over 1 million Americans have served, fighting issues like crime, poverty and the opiate crisis.

“We believe the best solutions come from outside Washington, where everyday people are finding ways to solve problems in their communities,” said Warfield.

CNCS costs the federal government “about $1 billion” per year, according to Warfield.

That $1 billion in funding from the federal government is often matched by outside organizations that sponsor service members, resulting in the leverage of “an additional $1.25 billion from outside resources,” Warfield noted.

If the funding for CNCS were to be cut, AmeriCorps and other national service programs like Teach for America and Senior Corps would be collateral damage.

While nothing has been finalized, the national service community is concerned.

AnnMaura Connolly, the executive vice president of Voices for National Service, an advocacy coalition for national service, praised AmeriCorps as an “effective way to tackle problems in our communities.”

“I believe the national service community ... has a lot to offer the country at this very moment,” said Connolly.

Voices for National Service has launched a campaign to help AmeriCorps, encouraging concerned parties to contact Congress.

“The administration’s budget proposal serves as a set of recommendations to Congress as they make decisions about federal spending,” the campaign reads. “But Congress ultimately makes the decision about what is funded and what is not. We must make sure Congress protects AmeriCorps.”

Connolly says AmeriCorps helps numerous communities across America. “The elimination of Americorps “would devastate the more than 1,100 faith-based and community organizations like Teach for America, Habitat for Humanity, Catholic Charities USA and The Red Cross, that rely on AmeriCorps members to serve children and families,” she said. “Communities without this resource would struggle.”

She noted that the AmeriCorps program doesn’t just help communities, but also the people who choose to work for them, too. “These people work their hearts out,” she said, and in return, they develop numerous skills that make them highly desirable employees after their terms of service.

“If we're really considered about jobs in this country, [AmeriCorps] is a very powerful pathway to work” said Connolly.

Like Dang, Kalli Allen was also helped by McCallops when she applied to college.

Allen, a sophomore at Albion College in Michigan, describes herself as a “black woman” who grew up in Cleveland in “one of the rougher parts of the city.” Neither of her parents went to college; they couldn’t help her with the college application process either.

“I was terrified,” Allen told USA TODAY College. “I didn’t know how the process worked.”

Related: Viewpoint: Improve your life with a year of service

But she too met McCallops, who helped her apply to college and apply for financial aid.

“Without a doubt, if it weren't for AmeriCorps I don't know if I would still be in school, let alone at a school that is the right fit for me,” Allen said. Cutting its funding would hurt a lot of students, she thinks: “Not only would this cut the chances of underrepresented students to successfully attain a college education — thereby systematically preventing them from pulling up the bootstraps people claim everyone has access to — but it's also cutting out a very important service industry.”

And Dang says she's been been considering joining AmeriCorps herself after college, to give back -- which would be impossible if the Trump administration's plan to cut the CNCS funding goes into effect.

“I want to give back to my country,” Dang said.

Toni Airaksinen is a student at Barnard College and a USA TODAY College correspondent.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.