President Obama has demonstrated clearly that he will alter or reverse many of the policies of the Bush administration. Here's a change that I hope the Obama administration will bring about: a renewed interest in civic engagement and public service and the end of nearly 30 years of devaluing the role of government.

Ever since Ronald Reagan made the ill-considered argument in his first inaugural address that government was part of the problem rather than the solution, the role of the public service has been systematically devalued. This attitude has had a serious effect on the quality and numbers of professionals who pursue careers at all levels of government. There is also evidence that the best and brightest have left senior government jobs, often for more highly paid positions in the private sector. This loss of high-quality "human capital" affects virtually every government function — from food and drug safety to the regulation and protection of the environment. It also helps to explain, in part, the slow and ineffective response to natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, as well as to human-made disasters, such as the current financial crisis.

And now, to compound the problem, the public sector faces a sobering demographic reality — the Baby Boom generation is beginning to retire in large numbers, creating enormous hiring needs at all levels of government. One study found that over the next five years roughly 530,000 employees will leave the federal government alone.

The twofold challenge is clear. First, young adults must be convinced that a career in public service is once again worth pursuing, and they must receive appropriate training in public management and policy, as well as reasonable pay. Obama, by his example and his actions, will address the first need. Just as John F. Kennedy did four decades ago, Obama can use his bully pulpit to rebuild the popularity and prestige of public service. Over time, the anti-government attitudes can be reversed, and the influence of public service at all levels restored. It will then be much easier to entice bright young people to consider careers in public service.

The second half of the challenge is how to train these newly energized young people for public service. In this highly resource-constrained era, how can we produce the necessary number of well-trained public servants in the most cost-effective fashion? One idea being promoted aggressively inside the Beltway is the creation of a national public service academy — a four-year undergraduate school, modeled closely on the military service academies, designed to train individuals for public sector careers. Students would be fully subsidized — no tuition! — and would, in return, serve a five-year stint in the public sector.

This idea looks really good at first glance, but less so the more one considers it. First, the data show clearly that there is a need for tens of thousands of new public servants annually in the coming years, but the proposed undergraduate academy would produce only a few thousand graduates each year. Second, many public sector jobs require advanced training, meaning that alumni of a public service academy would still need to return for a graduate degree. And can we justify investing in a public service academy at this time of economic austerity and fiscal crisis, especially when there are more than 260 universities in the United States that already offer degrees in public management and/or public policy at both the graduate and undergraduate levels? Clearly, the problem is not a lack of classrooms or academic opportunities.

Rather, what we must urgently address is the enormous debt burden facing those who may be inclined to pursue careers in government. Many of these individuals may be dissuaded by the realization that their income potential lags substantially behind that of their peers in law or business. We must eliminate this disincentive by providing financial assistance to enable these students to pursue the necessary graduate training.

As former George Washington University president Stephen Joel Trachtenberg has suggested, if the federal money proposed for the operation of the public service academy were used instead to provide tuition support for the thousands of students seeking to study at America's existing schools of public affairs, it would produce a substantially larger cadre of new, well-trained workers at all levels of government. This is the right way to go if we are to realize Obama's vision of an increased national commitment to public service.

Mitchel Wallerstein is dean and professor of political science and public administration at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.