The Democratic presidential front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, unveiled her higher-education platform today, promising to increase the maximum Pell Grant, double the HOPE tax credit, and create three new grants for colleges and job-training programs.
To pay for her plan, she would abolish the guaranteed-loan program and freeze the estate tax.
Ms. Clinton, whose husband is credited with creating direct lending, is the third Democratic candidate to call for ending the Federal Family Education Loan Program, which relies on banks and other types of lenders to deliver federally backed loans to students. Barack Obama, a senator from Illiniois, and John Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, have also called for killing the program.
Ms. Clinton did not say how high she would raise the maximum Pell Grant, but she committed to “maintaining the value of the Pell Grant by annually adjusting it to take account of rising college costs.” Congress recently raised the maximum Pell Grant to $4,800 for the 2008-9 academic year.
Her tax-credit plan would raise the maximum HOPE credit from $1,650 to $3,500 and make it partially refundable, so that even people who are too poor to owe a federal income tax could claim the credit. She would also make the credit advanceable so that students and families could receive it when tuition was due.
She proposed two new grant programs aimed at improving graduation rates: The first would provide $500-million in grants to community colleges; the second would create a $250-million fund that would provide grants to four-year institutions.
At the same time, she promised $250-million in grants to on-the-job training and apprenticeship programs.
Ms. Clinton, whose husband created AmeriCorps in 1993, also vowed to double the education award provided to program participants, to $10,000.
Her plan would also:
— Require the Department of Education to develop an online “cost calculator” that would provide students with an estimate of the amount of aid they would be likely to receive in their first two years if they attended a given institution.
—Direct the Department of Education to publish information about colleges’ four- and six-year graduation rates and the percentage of each class that is employed or enrolled in further education after graduation, including information about earnings.
—Require state and local institutions to set multiyear tuition and fee levels for each four-year cohort of students.
—Allow students and families to apply for financial aid by checking a box on their income-tax returns.