Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., on Monday declined to support free four-year college for students if she were elected president in 2020.
“If I was a magic genie and could give that to everyone and we could afford it, I would,” Klobuchar said during a CNN town hall in New Hampshire. “I’m just trying to find a mix of incentives and make sure kids that are in need — that’s why I talked about expanding Pell Grants — can go to college and be able to afford it, and make sure that people that can afford it are able to pay.”
Klobuchar, a three-term senator and former prosecutor who this month officially announced her White House bid, was reminded by host Don Lemon she was speaking at Saint Anselm College in Manchester. In-state tuition costs in New Hampshire rank among the highest in the U.S., leading many Granite State students to graduate with some of the biggest debt in the country.
“I know that, but I’ve got to tell the truth,” she said. “I mean, we have this mounting debt that the Trump administration keeps getting worse and worse. I also don’t want to leave that on the shoulders of all these kids.”
Klobuchar on Monday diverged several times from the growing Democratic primary field ahead of the 2020 election, describing the “Green New Deal,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s, D-N.Y., measure that advocates for a drastic reduction in carbon emissions across the U.S. by 2030, as “aspirational.” She also said “Medicare For All” was an ambitious policy the country could consider implementing in “the future,” but that she wants “to get action now,” including improving Obamacare and boosting a public option.
Monday night’s town hall was CNN’s third after Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Howard Schultz, the former Starbucks CEO and executive chairman, who is mulling an independent campaign. The event, at times, became personal, with Klobuchar recalling her father’s battle with alcoholism. She said Jim Klobuchar, an ex-Star Tribune journalist and columnist, still attended Alcohol Anonymous meetings at age 90.
“He is a dad that I love more than ever. And what that told me was that I want to have other people be able to have that kind of redemption in their lives,” she said.
[Opinion: ‘Never Trump’ conservatives can’t be tempted by Amy Klobuchar]
