Concord Monitor (N.H.), Aug. 15:
Hillary Clinton has announced an ambitious plan to make public university education available to everyone, essentially tuition-free. Her plan is laudable, but it raises serious questions.
Broadly speaking, Clinton’s “New College Compact” spends $350 million over 10 years. It gives federal grants to states that are willing to put programs in place allowing students to attend school without taking out loans. States would also be expected to stop cutting aid to their universities and eventually spend more. The size of federal grants would depend partly on the number of low- to middleincome students enrolled.
Students and their families would also be expected to contribute. Families would have to pay a “realistic” amount, and students would be expected to work 10 hours a week.
The plan would also make community college tuition-free (a proposal already announced by President Obama), allow those with existing student loan debt to refinance and crack down on predatory lenders.
So far, so good.
But the success or failure of Clinton’s plan will ultimately depend on its execution and details. For instance, will simply offering the states money ensure that they institute such a wideranging initiative? The so-far unfulfilled promise of President Obama’s Medicaid expansion does not raise confidence. The country could easily end up divided, with blue states offering low-cost education to all and red states refusing to consider it.
For that matter, what’s a “realistic” contribution toward a child’s college education? Who gets to decide what “realistic” is? What about families that wouldn’t be able to contribute even a small amount?
Who will be responsible for protecting college students from exploitation? If many will now be required to work to receive their tuition, what’s to stop unscrupulous employers – private or public – from taking advantage of an enormous pool of essentially forced labor?
Clinton’s plan is notably less expensive than the one proposed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who proposes spending $70 billion a year. Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland, has proposed “limiting college tuition to 10 percent of a state’s median income at four-year schools and 5 percent at two-year schools,” according to the Monitor’s Ella Nilsen.
No doubt Clinton’s backers would say the specifics of her proposal are what distinguish it. The candidate has seen how Washington works and is presenting a practical plan, they would argue. But in many ways, that is the precise problem.
Any higher education plan that passes Congress will be less sweeping than what a candidate proposes on the trail. If Clinton is elected president, she will have to give up part of this plan if she wants to achieve concrete change. So why would she get bogged down in the details now, especially if they raise such practical problems?
Voters want to hear about plans for reforming the way we pay for higher education. Especially in New Hampshire, where a single year at UNH costs a crippling $27,604.
But addressing a problem like that takes more than ambition, and it takes more than a detailed policy proposal. It will take visionary leadership to move the nation toward the big steps that will be required to truly prepare for the challenges to come.
In that sense, Clinton’s plan is both too much and not enough.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
