Here are two things we know about the presidential candidates and their views on reining in student-loan debt and making college more affordable for a wider swath of students:
Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic challenger, favors free tuition for many — but not all — students attending two-year community colleges and four-year public universities. President Donald Trump, on the other hand, does not have a stated higher-education platform, though he favors simplifying the confusing array of loan-repayment plans, among other things. It’s highly unlikely he’d support free college.
Plenty of issues have been debated by both presidential candidates. But higher-education policies have barely been touched.
Why has college affordability drawn little attention from either candidate? Perhaps because there are so many other economic and social issues that need to be addressed?
That said, with the election into the home stretch, here are some of the protocols each candidate might bring to higher education in the next four years, based on their campaign comments, policy statements on their websites (www.joebiden.com; www.donaldjtrump.com) and, in the case of Trump, past practices. Of course, a Democrat-controlled Congress would open up more possibilities for change.
Joe Biden
Biden supports free tuition for those attending two-year community college. Four years of undergraduate studies at public universities would also be tuition-free for families earning less than $125,000. Presumably, students would still be on the hook for books, fees, and room and board.
A widely quoted report from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce estimates Biden’s free college plan could cost nearly $50 billion in its first year and about $700 billion after 10 years. The report also noted that additional tax revenue the plan would generate would offset costs after 10 years.
What Biden’s plan would mean for many cash-strapped schools — in the midst of pandemic-related enrollment declines — must be factored into the “free” equation as well as the impact on state higher-education budgets.
Biden has also said borrowers should not have to make payments toward their loans until they are earning at least $25,000, and loans should not accumulate interest before borrowers begin earning that amount. He also favors canceling at least $10,000 in debt for student-loan borrowers dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak.
Biden also favors doubling the size of federal Pell Grants — given to low- to moderate-income students — from the current maximum of $6,345, allowing borrowers to use the funds to cover books, food and housing costs.
Donald Trump
What higher-education policies would look like in a second term of the Trump administration is harder to decipher because there is no stated mandate on his official campaign website.
However, the president has long supported a more streamlined loan-repayment process. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Trump also has proposed that student-loan forgiveness be made available to all borrowers with undergraduate and graduate student loans who participate in a single income-driven repayment plan.
Borrowers would pay 12.5% of their discretionary income and would receive student-loan forgiveness after 15 years for their federal undergraduate students loans and after 25 years for federal graduate loans.
Trump might continue to push for expanding vocational education programs, apprenticeships and other work-based learning programs.
Trump has extended the pandemic-related pause on federal student-loan repayment to the end of this year. Win or lose, Trump will still be in office when the deadline expires, and the decision on whether to keep excusing borrowers from paying back their loans will be his.
Eventually, when borrowers are required to make payments again, either Trump or Biden will have to decide whether to phase it in and for how long. Yet another stake in an election of seemingly never-ending high stakes.
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