Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders want to win millennial votes based on their higher education plans, and to do so, they’re buying them off with promises of free tuition and debt forgiveness.
“Sanders is pitching a scheme to make public colleges and universities tuition-free, and Clinton is promoting one that would ensure students pay what they can without taking on crippling loans,” according to Reuters.
The Democratic contenders have met young Americans on the issues young Americans care about. The Republicans have yet to follow suit.
Even though the Harvard Institute of Politics found that the most pressing issues for millennials are job creation, health care policy, and education policy, Republicans have ignored higher education policy. Only Marco Rubio and, recently, Jeb Bush, have released higher education plans.
Clinton’s New College Compact promises that “costs won’t be a barrier” and “debt won’t hold you back.” That means more federal spending, limiting families to “realistic” contributions, making colleges “accountable for improving outcomes and controlling costs,” refinancing student debt, and income-based repayment that, if similar to current IBR plans in place, limit payments to 10 percent of a borrower’s income with debt forgiveness after 20 or 25 years.
Clinton will fund her college plan “by limiting certain tax expenditures for high-income taxpayers,” in an attempt to avoid raising any taxes on the middle class.
If millennials think that Clinton asks too much from students and families, then Sanders makes her look callous in comparison.
“It is insane and counter-productive to the best interests of our country and our future, that hundreds of thousands of bright young people cannot afford to go to college, and that millions of others leave school with a mountain of debt that burdens them for decades,” Sanders proclaimed on his website.
To that end, he proposes to tuition-free and debt-free public college. The creation of a tax on “Wall Street speculation” would fund his plan, he declares, which would eliminate tuition, lower student loan interest rates, refinance them, and provide more need-based financial aid, along with work-study programs.
Clinton balks at the idea of free college. “I am not going to give free college education to wealthy kids,” she said in September. The difference between affordability and free divides Clinton and Sanders. Clinton expects her plan to cost $350 billion over 10 years, whereas Sanders’s plan would cost $75 billion per year, or more than twice as much as Clinton’s plan over 10 years.
Millennials are “nearly evenly split” between the candidates, according to Reuters.
The Harvard Institute of Politics found that 72 percent of Democratic-leaning millennials were satisfied with their choice of candidates. Those in college favored Sanders by a 34-point margin, though Clinton held a lead among millennials 25-29 years old, and among black and Hispanic millennials.
Chasing millennials, Democrats have offered government largesse to assuage anxiety over higher education costs, while Republicans have mostly remained silent. As the Republican candidates ignore the concerns of young Americans, the Democrats look to be in a better position with millennials, regardless of who wins the nomination.
