Not compulsory volunteerism, but I think the government has the right to make you do community service in exchange for, say, free education. My college is a public school, and we need to do 8 hours of community service as it stands right now.
As much as I don't like volunteer work, I think it's a reasonable trade. If you don't want to do the work, you go to a private school.
What? What "free education" are you talking about? Maybe you should go to your state gov't website and figure out how much taxes everyone is paying for "free education". The gov't doesn't "give" you anything, the money the gov't has, comes form the pockets of the taxpayers.
...Of course. That's the whole idea of government. However, the way it works is that taxes come from everybody and get funneled into very specific venues, which you don't need to pay for in particular. So as a child, you don't pay to go to school, and your parents pay taxes, but they don't pay for school in general.
However, the government organizes those schools, for better or for worse, and so my point is that it's within the government's rights to set up a system like the one Obama's proposing, so long as the system exists only for public schools.
As much as I don't like volunteer work, I think it's a reasonable trade. If you don't want to do the work, you go to a private school.