That still exists. My son in law who was an ems medic went into the air force which paid for his college, medical training to become a nurse. That I think was for a 4-year obligation to the air force. It worked out one year for every year of college. Stuff like that still exists as far as the military. After college, he became an automatic 2LT.

As for Gingrich, he gets blamed for a lot that Dennis Hastert did. It was the Hastert rule that started all of this. I doubt very few even remember Hastert as Speaker. Gingrich was overthrown much like McCarthy was by the republicans.