As the Democratic presidential primary race heats up and the list of candidates is winnowed, it’s time to take stock of their positions on higher education’s hot-button issues.
Here we look at the stances of the half-dozen candidates who participated in the final primary debate, in Iowa on January 14. This list may be updated as the campaign continues.
Here are the nuts and bolts on how each would push top higher-education policy concerns from the Oval Office.
Free College
Variations of tuition- and debt-free college are proposed by five of the six candidates, with community-college students as some of the primary benefactors.
According to his official campaign website, Joe Biden, the former vice president, plans to make college more affordable by providing two years of tuition-free community college, with the federal government covering 75 percent of the costs and states making up the rest. In the case of Native American tribes that run community colleges catering to low-income students, the federal government would cover 95 percent of the costs. Biden would institute a first-dollar aid program, which would allow students to cover expenses beyond tuition and fees with federal and state aid.
In the plan shared by his campaign, Pete Buttigieg, on the other hand, is one of the few candidates on this list who is opposed to universal free college. Instead, he proposes debt-free college for low-income families. While answering a question on the topic in the final Democratic presidential primary debate in Iowa, he said public colleges should be free for only the bottom 80 percent of Americans by income. Under his plan, tuition would be free for students in families earning up to $100,000. Tuition subsidies would be available for families earning up to $150,000 but would be tiered depending on income, and exact levels have yet to be defined, according to a campaign staffer.
According to a post of her plan on Medium, Amy Klobuchar intends to institute tuition-free community college and use federal funds to match state-invested dollars toward students who qualify for in-state tuition, are enrolled at least part time, and maintain good academic standing. Under her plan, the federal government would pay $3 for every $1 paid by a state.
Bernie Sanders has the boldest intentions for free college, planning to invest $48 billion annually to make tuition free at two-year and four-year public, historically black, tribal, and minority-serving colleges, according to his campaign website. He plans to have the federal government pay for two-thirds of the costs — slightly less than Biden’s plan — with states and tribes making up the difference. States and tribes must sustain spending levels on several educational checkpoints, including need-based financial aid, to keep federal funding. Additionally, states and tribes participating in the plan would be required to cover the full cost of low-income students, with matching federal funds for any additional spending toward reducing the cost of attendance.
The billionaire Tom Steyer has spoken very little about free college. He has noted that he sees “public education from universal pre-kindergarten through college as a right,” according to his campaign website. His campaign did not respond to a Chronicle inquiry seeking more details.
And on her campaign website, Elizabeth Warren proposes some form of tuition- and debt-free college at two-year and four-year public colleges, the latter ideology only shared by Sanders. Costs would be split between federal and state governments at a 2-to-1 ratio, and states would be held accountable for maintaining levels of spending on need-based financial aid and academic instruction, according to a campaign staffer.
Student-Debt Forgiveness
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program can expect sweeping renovations, while debt cancellation stands front and center of two candidates’ plans.
Under Biden’s plan, borrowers earning less than $25,000 per year would not owe any payments on undergraduate loans or accrue interest until they begin to earn more, according to a campaign staffer. Those who earn more would be required to pay 5 percent of their discretionary income, half of what borrowers are normally asked to pay. Responsibly paid loans would be forgiven after 20 years on an income-based plan. Biden also pledges to re-enact the Obama administration’s borrower-defense rule, which forgives debt incurred from attending for-profit schools that mislead or take advantage of students through unethical methods, and to allow the discharge, or forgiveness, of private loans. For up to five years, Biden’s plan would also offer $10,000 in debt relief for every year of national or community service.
A big focus on public-service relief is also found in Buttigieg’s plan. The former mayor of South Bend, Ind., plans to tackle the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, canceling debt incrementally based on employees’ years of service and completely forgiving it after 10 years. Student borrowers would also be automatically enrolled in an income-driven repayment plan if they struggle to repay, and their debt would be automatically eliminated after 20 years. Under the plan, low-income borrowers who have defaulted on student loans could expect wage garnishments and similar forms of collection to end. Buttigieg also follows the Obama administration in planning to expunge the debts of borrowers in for-profit programs.
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program is also one of many targets for Klobuchar, who plans to expand it to borrowers who work in “in-demand” occupations. Under her plan, undergraduate loans would be forgiven after 10 years of payments through an income-driven plan, half the time of Biden’s and Buttigieg’s plans. She would also allow both federal and private student loans to be refinanced at lower rates and would require institutions to notify student borrowers of their loan responsibilities.
Sanders, the junior United States senator from Vermont, is the only candidate on this list who has advocated for canceling all $1.6 trillion in student-loan debt. In Sanders’s College for All Act, interest rates on undergraduate loans would be restricted from rising above 1.88 percent.
Steyer’s plan centers on forgiving some types of student-loan debt and shifting how it is refinanced, reforming the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, and holding predatory loan servicers accountable. The specifics of his plan were unavailable, as the campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Besides Sanders, Warren, the senior United States senator from Massachusetts, is the only candidate who plans to cancel loans outright, up to $50,000 in federal and private student-loan debt for those who live in households with an annual income below $100,000. She also proposes a lesser debt-cancellation plan for those with a household income of $100,000 to $250,000.
Pell Grant Expansion
Maximum Pell Grant amounts would see a substantial increase, and eligibility would expand to incarcerated students.
Biden says he will double the maximum value of Pell Grants, currently at $6,195 per academic year, and expand their eligibility to individuals who were formerly incarcerated and Dreamers, undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. Under his plan, the value of Pell Grants would be automatically adjusted for inflation.
Buttigieg’s plan calls for a more modest increase, of $1,000, to the maximum Pell Grant amount but couples it with an overall investment of $120 billion in the grant. Like most candidates on this list, he plans to expand the grant beyond tuition-related costs or fees to basic living expenses, and to index the amount given to inflation. Additionally, incarcerated individuals and immigrant beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, as Dreamers are known, would have access to Pell Grants under Buttigieg’s plan.
Klobuchar, the senior United States senator from Minnesota, would also double the maximum Pell Grant, to $12,000, and ensure that the amount keeps pace with inflation. In addition, she would expand it to students who live in households that report up to $100,000 per year in income and to incarcerated students. The plan would allow returning students to requalify for Pell Grants after reaching the lifetime allotment. (Eligible students are guaranteed up to 12 semesters of Pell Grant assistance under current law.)
Pell Grant increases are emphasized less in Sanders’s plan because, under it, any student who qualifies for the grant could attend college tuition- and debt-free. He does plan to allow low-income students, those whose families earn less than $25,000, to use Pell Grants to pay for costs unrelated to tuition and fees, such as housing and books. And in early 2018, he co-sponsored the REAL Act, along with Warren, which would expand the grant’s eligibility to incarcerated students and sex offenders under civil committment, a form of involuntary confinement, and still supports it, according to a campaign staffer.
Steyer’s campaign has not publicly taken a stance on Pell Grants. The campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Over a decade, Warren would invest $100 billion in Pell Grants, slightly less than Buttigieg. Along with other senators, Warren last September introduced the Pell Grant Restoration Act, which would permit borrowers to become newly eligible for the grant for any period of time that they qualified for loan forgiveness if the college closed down or due to “institutional fraud or misconduct.”
Graduate-Student Unions
Most of the candidates support unionization, which would be a reversal from the Trump administration’s policies.
Biden and Buttigieg — along with Sanders and Warren — supported the labor strike in December by members of Harvard’s graduate-student union, which called for new wage contracts and health benefits, among other priorities.
Under her plan for the future of work and a changing economy, Klobuchar would seek to enact the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, a bill she co-sponsored in the Senate, which would prevent workers from being labeled as anything other than employees and would discourage anti-union practices.
Sanders recently introduced a Senate bill, the Respect Graduate Student Workers Act, which would protect graduate-student workers’ right to form a union, currently under threat from the National Labor Relations Board. The legislation was introduced in November in the House by Rep. Mark Pocan, Democrat of Wisconsin.
Steyer’s campaign has not taken a stance on graduate-student workers’ right to unionize.
Warren is marching in lockstep with Sanders on this front, supporting the students’ right to organize, and she plans to appoint members to the National Labor Relations Board who would ensure the protection of that right, according to her plan to empower American workers and raise wages.