Andrew J. Holmes offers a mixed assessment of Strauss's article:

As a former Peace Corps volunteer, former international development worker, and current MBA candidate, I find that the author’s arguments cite legitimate problems with the Peace Corps, but in doing so points out some of the strengths of the program.

Many large organizations, government and otherwise, are riddled with inefficiency, and I believe that a further analysis of Peace Corps' finances would likely prove that it is relatively lean for a government organization. Medivacs and the bureaucracy that involves medical complications are a large expense, and it is amazing that Peace Corps is as inexpensive to taxpayers as it is after taking this into account. I doubt the American taxpayers get more bang for their buck in any international development, military, or entitlement programs.

Giving Peace Corps concrete goals to accomplish would be an extremely difficult task, given the variety of circumstances within and across countries in which volunteers operate. Much of the development community struggles with establishing benchmarks for performance; the fact that Peace Corps volunteers often operate in fringe areas makes this all the more difficult. While at first sounding like a good idea, in many cases specific benchmarks would either doom volunteers to inevitable failure or, to prevent this failure, would prevent volunteers from ever entering a site to begin with. In fact, a major component of a Volunteer’s assignment lies in their assessing the situation, and developing attainable goals based on the environment. An enforced plan from Washington would force volunteers to attempt to fit square pegs into round holes.