Clinton proposes plan for affordable college

Clinton said student debt is now at $1.2 trillion nationally and has increased by 42 percent over the last 10 years.

Hillary Clinton rolled out a $350 billion proposal Monday that her campaign says would help millions of people pay for college and reduce interest rates for student loans.

“There’s something wrong when students and their families have to go deeply into debt to be able to get the education and skills they need in order to make the best of their own lives”, Clinton told an audience at an Iowa community college in April, as her campaign was just beginning. Clinton organizers plan to promote the plan at registration events and other gatherings kicking off the school year, according to a campaign aide, in an effort to galvanize college students. A plan that spends $350 billion can be defined as many things, but affordable is not on that list. And when you read between the lines of Clinton’s plan, what emerges are a lot of shifts in how Americans perceive, and achieve, what is increasingly a requirement for prosperity: a college degree.

O’Malley wants a debt-free college while Sanders proposed a tuition-free college, providing $47 billion of federal funds to states for 4-year public colleges.

Still, the rest of students’ tuition would be state-funded, thereby eliminating the need to take out loans for tuition itself. In 2013, roughly 7 in 10 students had an average of about $28,400 in college debt each, according to the Institute for College Access & Success, an advocacy group that tracks college costs and student debt.

Clinton’s plan would allow graduates to refinance existing loans at current rates, and would consolidate four existing programs that allow graduates to make income-based loan payments into one that caps repayment at 10 percent of income, with the balance forgiven after 20 years. She also wants to ensure the federal government “will never again profit off student loans for college students”.

After a series of questions from reporters regarding Trump, Clinton eventually threw up her hands in exasperation when, finally, asked about student debt.

Republican presidential candidates criticized the costs of Clinton’s proposal on Monday morning.

Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which has advocated to elevate college affordability to a top political issue, praised Clinton’s “bold proposal”. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), it also incorporates bipartisan policies like risk-sharing, which penalizes colleges when too many graduates default on their loans. Tuition and fees for in-state residents at public colleges across the US have increased by more than 40 per cent since 2004 after adjusting for inflation.

On the right, former Florida governor Jeb Bush was quick to condemn Clinton’s plan as “irresponsible”.

To help make the case for her plan, she singled out Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker during Tuesday’s town hall, saying the Republican presidential candidate delighted in cutting money for higher education in his state.

While Clinton’s plan aims to reverse these trends, it would require significant support from Congress and the states. I think more people should say the same; they should be going after him.