President Trump won more on a message than a platform: The establishment has been looking out for itself, “but not the citizens of our country,” and that if elected the “forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.” It’s proven a hard message to govern on, but on higher education the administration deserves credit for translating the Trumpian populist impulse into policy.
Under Obama, the media ran story after story about struggling student loan borrowers with more than $100,000 in debt. While the individual stories were true, they narrative they built was fake. Only 5 percent of borrowers in 2016 had a balance that high, and their advanced degrees and high incomes made them the least likely of any group to default. The true crisis was ignored: 8.4 million borrowers in default, with the majority leaving school without a degree and almost half leaving school with less than $10,000 in debt.
