Clinton to unveil costly, detailed plan to tackle student debt

With anxiety over college costs and student debt running high, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton unveiled a wide-ranging plan to make higher education more affordable at a campaign event today. The video highlights a number of students have been saddled with up to $200,000 in student debt.

“When we talk about changing student debt, I get nervous about how much many of these changes will cost“, he said.

Michael Dannenberg, a director at Education Reform Now, heralded Clinton’s plan for not being a “typical more money for college aid approach”.

Ronayne reported from Exeter, New Hampshire.

The Clinton campaign asks that students, families, universities, states, and the federal government “do their part” to make it easier to attend college without taking on excessive debt, according to briefing documents.

“What Hillary Clinton won’t say is that her new $350 billion spending plan comes at the expense of charities across the country as she limits the deduction for charitable giving”, said Jeff Bechdel, a spokesman for America Rising PAC, an anti-Clinton group. Politically, the effort could energize young voters, who were critical to President Obama’s victory over Clinton in the 2008 primary and then to both his general election wins. “Families that can send their sons and daughters to college, graduates who can buy homes and start businesses without being held back by loans, and student parents who can balance the costs of quality child care with returning to school”.

Clinton’s proposal, which puts most of the burden on colleges, would cost $350bn over 10 years.

In May, Sanders introduced a Senate bill that would eliminate tuition at four-year public colleges and universities, which is estimated to cost $70bn a year.

“It will depend on the student circumstances and the institution they are going to”, Center for American Progress executive VP Carmel Martin said.

Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton is preparing to roll out her plan for expanding access to college and reigning in student debt during a swing through New Hampshire. And she’d cut future borrowing costs by preventing the government from making a profit on loans to students.

It does not speak well of our higher education system that such restrictions are deemed necessary – it’s a tacit admission that pumping tons of money into academia resulted in loads of administrative bloat and outright graft, instead of improving education.

“Everyone will be able to enroll in a simplified and streamlined income based repayment program so that borrowers never have to pay more than 10% of what they make”, according to a white paper on Clinton’s plan. After 20 years, their remaining debt would be automatically forgiven if they kept up with payments. She’d do that by providing federal grants to states, as long as the states up their investment in higher education.

And how does Sanders plan on funding this idea? Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), offered up their plans earlier this year to create a pathway towards “debt-free” and “tuition-free”, college respectively. Some on the left have said his plan doesn’t quite go far enough because it doesn’t support non-tuition costs.

Weeks before details of Clinton’s plan were announces, Green expressed hope that Clinton, too, would push for debt-free college.