Posted on 08/26/2019 9:09:34 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Democratic contenders for the presidential nomination are talking a lot about higher education — or at least certain aspects of it: free tuition, student debt bailouts, more Pell Grants, special funding for historically black colleges and universities. In other words, “free” everything except free speech.
The National Association of Scholars (NAS) just released a new tool to help track what presidential candidates are saying about higher education. We chart the top five Democratic candidates on 10 different issues, ranging from free college to affirmative action. We picked the issues that generated proposals from the most candidates.
Over time, we’ll add more candidates and more topics. (You can view the list, candidate by candidate, or download a version of the chart in Excel, allowing you to sort by topic.)
You can see that all of the top five candidates have put forward plans to make college free — for at least some students at some universities. The most radical plans come from Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Both want to cancel tuition for all students at public two- and four-year colleges and universities and to retain Pell Grants to cover books and living costs for poor students.
Sanders specifically includes tribal colleges, trade schools, and apprenticeships in his free college proposal; Warren doesn’t mention them. Both would increase funding for private historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and minority-serving institutions (MSIs), with the goal of eliminating tuition at these institutions as well. In short, everyone besides students at non-HBCU/MSI private institutions would pay no tuition.
The most conservative plan comes from Joe Biden, who has said he supports free community college for all students. In between are Kamala Harris (free community college and “debt-free” HBCUs and MSIs) and Pete Buttigieg (“debt-free” public college for low-income students).
All five have also commented on student loan forgiveness, ranging from Sanders, who would cancel all $1.6 trillion in student debt immediately, to Harris, who would forgive up to $20,000 in student debt for Pell Grant recipients who start a business that operates for three years in “disadvantaged communities.”
NAS’s chart also shows how candidates would pay for all this new spending. Notably, only two candidates have even bothered to explain where the money will come from. Sanders proposes — no surprise — a “Wall Street speculation tax,” involving a “0.5 percent tax on stock trades, … a 0.1 percent fee on bond trades, and a 0.005 percent fee on derivative trades.” His plan would cost about $2.2 trillion over 10 years.
Warren acknowledges her free college plan and debt bailout plan (which would cancel $50,000 in student loans for everyone with a household income under $100,000, and a portion of student loans for those with household incomes between $100,000 and $250,000) would require “a one-time cost to the government of $640 billion. The Universal Free College program brings the total cost of the program to roughly $1.25 trillion over ten years.”
But not to worry, because “the entire cost … is more than covered by my Ultra-Millionaire Tax — a 2% annual tax on the 75,000 families with $50 million or more in wealth.” To be clear, that’s a tax on owning wealth, not on earning income.
Four of the top five contenders — all but Harris — have proposals for affirmative action. Most notably, Warren wants all public colleges to complete “an annual audit” to identify and fix any “shortfalls” in “enrollment and graduation rates for lower-income students and students of color.” Biden would reinstate the Obama-era guidance on affirmative action, which declared racial preferences a compelling state interest.
Three candidates take aim at for-profit institutions. Warren goes the furthest: She would “ban for-profit colleges from receiving any federal dollars (including military benefits and federal student loans).”
None of these proposals will fix higher education. Making public universities tuition-free will only drive down quality and incentivize ill-prepared students to spend four to six years muddling through race-class-gender theory. It will kill most private colleges. At a time America’s college-age population is shrinking and a booming economy is pulling students into the workforce, Democratic candidates would play favorites propping up public universities with a multibillion-dollar bonanza.
Bailing out student debt hurts responsible adults who lived frugally and paid off their loans. Affirmative action judges candidates on the basis of their skin — exactly contrary to the American ethos. Scapegoating for-profits fails to recognize their agility and place in the American higher education ecosystem.
These plans also leave out a lot. They say nothing about protecting free speech, arguably the greatest crisis facing higher education today. They do nothing to curtail the huge, government spending-induced inflation in college costs.
This isn’t a partisan critique. Republicans have done nothing this Congress to protect campus free speech. President Trump’s higher education agenda, released in March, while a big improvement over his Democratic rivals’, is nothing much to get excited over. Candidates and lawmakers of both parties should look at NAS’s proposal for overhauling higher education, “The Freedom to Learn Amendments,” which prioritizes freedom of speech and federal deregulation.
Redistributing tax dollars to shovel students into college won’t improve higher education. It’s clear Democratic candidates fail to grasp the fundamental questions of what higher education is for and why intellectual freedom matters — namely, the pursuit of truth, which is something money can’t buy.
How about...
NO
IF anyone wants free or close to free college-we already have that, its called community or two year college-IF i were king for a day I would make it mandatory for all before entering 4 year college, and it would remove the stigma and lower cost-some Community colleges are tryng to offer 4 year egress but the 4 year colleges are fighting that tooth and nail-it would just gut the demand for over priced 4 year colleges
Maybe that should be Trump and GOP answer-push offer community colleges with ability to offer 4 year degrees and trades
“Everything will be free, except the right to speak and hold your own opinions.”
You cannot build a utopian socialist state by catering to individuals!
Why shouldn’t people who cannot afford to send their own children to college be forced to pay college tuition for the children of illegals, minorities and their wealthy neighbors?
/s
I don’t want to pay for half-wits to attend college.
College is not for everybody. Probably only about 20% of the people who THINK they want to attend college would actually benefit from acquiring that degree.
Most of the remainder would be served better were they to concentrate on a course of training that leads to a well-paying job, be that driving truck, welding, electronics design and repair, or being able to greet people on the phone with some degree of pleasantness. None of these positions are as simple as they seem, but they are all part of a well-functioning economic system. History of racial relations may seem to be appealing, but it turns out to have little real-world application and is not welcomed by the market place.
A college degree is not simply some kind of union card, and when there is WAY too much of any commodity, its value drops sharply. That is why machinists and plumbers get paid so much.
Sure— help create some more Women’s Studies, LGBT studies, and “social” workers.... with huge student loans unpayable. Help them become the legions of a-holes we have to put up with like permanent National children of the socialist “family”. Just because... poverty.
Calling Bernie Madoff-— help out with this other federal PONZI scheme.
BTW— found out that the Picower Foundation continues even after the man who was the largest benefactor of the Madoff fake ponzi scheme (earliest investor) coughed back 7.2 Billion to the suing Madoff Trustee, in the largest civil seizure/adjudication in US history— to be returned to the many other ponzi victims as pennies on their invested dollars and zero profits. Picower died and his scam broad wife is NOW Director of the JPB Foundation (assets of 3 Billion! from where?) all LEFTY causes— including this one of paying tuition, and “stopping” poverty. Scamming still.
https://www.jpbfoundation.org/
Applicants should be required to have 3 years minimum of a trade experience in the combined form of a paid internship
Every time andy ONE of these “one upsmanship” giveaway crazed socialist libs— including Fauxcahontas especially says this everything free crap..
Instantly needs conservative reply— “how are we going to pay for this 200 trillion plus impossible expense that represents the entire federal budget... and more?
And then call it what it is: the Democrat Bernie Madoff/Sanders/Warren Ponzi Communist scheme to destroy the USA!
AND that's what we'd get if we put them in charge of 'the next four years' of education. Kindergartner though 16th grade ...
They need more teachers to launder federal government campaign contributions to Demacrats through their union dues.
Government force should not economically prop up the relatively high incomes of the providers of high cost services and products, like prescription drugs, hospital care and college.
Government force should not sustain inequality.
You nailed it there. The reason university education can be free of charge in other countries is that so few people attend university. They have to take qualifying tests with objective standards and only the top scores are admitted. Here, by contrast there’s illiterates on full scholarships.
New technology and better educational materials are what should be utilized.
I don’t want to support four years at Country Club College at $50,000/year for “tuition” alone.
“Warren wants all public colleges to complete ‘an annual audit’ to identify and fix any ‘shortfalls’ in ‘enrollment and graduation rates for lower-income students and students of color.’”
A kid who grew up in Scarsdale whose mother is a book editor and whose father is an investment banker is probably going to have better language and math skills than a kid from Brownsville in Brooklyn.
No.
My daughters will graduate debt free and that should be the end of my obligation.
After putting my 2 kids through college loan free I just can’t afford to pay for someone else’s kid(s).
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