When President Bush promised in 2002 to more than double the size of the Peace Corps within five years, volunteer applications to the program skyrocketed.
President-elect Barack Obama made a similar promise during his campaign to raise the present number of Peace Corps volunteers from 7,876 to 16,000 by March 2011, the program's 50th anniversary.
But when Obama takes office, he will inherit an agency whose expansion has been checked not by a lack of prospective volunteers, but by a failing economy and a lack of Congressional support. Though the number of Peace Corps volunteers grew by more than 1,500 between 2002 and 2007 to 8,079 - a 37-year high, according to agency spokeswoman Joellen Duckett - efforts to expand the Peace Corps during the Bush years fell far short of the president's 2002 promise.
That history suggests that graduating seniors - already worried about a bleak job market - may not be able to count on the promised growth in opportunities to serve abroad unless the agency is able to get the necessary funding and political support.
For near future, furthermore, positions will be even harder to get - the agency has been cutting volunteer positions since 2007 and will accept approximately 400 fewer volunteers in 2009 than it took this year, according to Joanna O'Brien, a spokeswoman for the Peace Corps.
Increased support from the White House for the service organization, which sends volunteers to foreign countries, would come at an opportune moment. The Corps has "really been hit" by the economic crisis, said Joellen Duckett, a spokeswoman for the agency. The Corps is currently operating on a budget, created last year, that has since been stretched by the declining value of the dollar, she said.
In contrast, applications for volunteer positions in the program have increased by 16 percent over the past year, Duckett said. The Peace Corps will not know whether Obama's election will affect interest in volunteer positions until next fall, she added.
The cuts that the Peace Corps has been forced to make in recent years may continue to affect prospective volunteers, despite Obama's planned expansion.
"Becoming a Peace Corps volunteer has always been a competitive process, but in a time of increasing applications and rising costs, it is more competitive than ever," O'Brien, the spokeswoman, wrote in an e-mail.
January Zuk, the Peace Corps recruiter for Rhode Island, said the agency does not know what it will be able to expect from the new administration, but Duckett said the agency will likely have a new director when Obama takes office.
While Bush followed his promise to drastically expand the Peace Corps with a request for a record budget for the agency, Duckett said, Capitol Hill had the final say on the program's funding.
"That budget that we got was not as much," Duckett said. "It's Congress that has the purse strings."
But some members of Congress have been trying to generate more support for the Peace Corps. Senator Chris Dodd, D-Conn., a former Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic, introduced the Peace Corps Volunteer Empowerment Act in March of last year.
While expanding the Peace Corps is not a primary focus of that legislation, the bill seeks to establish funding for volunteers' projects, encourage input from current and former volunteers and build a stronger community within the program, among other initiatives, according to Dodd's Web site.
But, according to Duckett, "that legislation hasn't moved."
A similar bill, the Peace Corps Reauthorization Act of 2008, was introduced in the House Representatives by Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif. The bill, which would generally increase funding for the Peace Corps, has also made little headway.
Nevertheless, some future volunteers remain optimistic. Samantha Kuo '09, who was recently nominated to serve after she graduates in May, said the expansion Obama has spoken about "would be really cool."
Kuo, who will participate in a joint masters program through the Peace Corps, added that she believes "people are losing a sense of duty" that Obama could help reignite. "It'd create more awareness, too," she said.