Hillary Clinton’s campaign unveiled an outline of its upcoming new college affordability platform Wednesday. And it looks awfully familiar.
Among other shifts to the left, her new plan offers free tuition at public in-state universities to students whose families earn less than $125,000 a year—”More than eighty percent of all families,” according to the Clinton campaign. That particular idea is also more than 80 percent identical to opponent Bernie Sanders’s proposal to make public universities free for everyone.
“This is not a radical idea,” Sanders’s campaign website states.
While it’s not as inclusive as the democratic socialist’s idea to make state schools free for all, the Clinton plan would likely have the same damaging effects on American higher education. For one thing, offering free tuition to America’s public universities would upend the standard processes of private colleges, and, as economist Max Eden projected, it may not help students from low-income families much at all. Qualified students from middle-income families—topping out around $125,000 per year, according to recent research—would forego private education and its costly student loans, instead flocking to free public universities to save more money. Such a shift would thereby steal acceptance letters from less privileged competitors.
Clinton’s new plan has Sanders’s fingerprints all over it. The Vermont senator has yet to concede the race, but on the day she won President Obama’s endorsement, Sanders promised to “work with the Clinton campaign.” According to Inside Higher Ed‘s story on the new Clinton plan, Sanders followed through with providing a major role in the proposal’s development. Scott Jaschik reported:
This is a step up from Clinton’s more moderate, prior commitment to student loan reform. She only yelled about “debt-free college” at first, while Sanders grumble-shouted a “tuition-free college” pledge that’s often cited as a major boon to his popularity with young primary voters.
