30 Issues | Comparing the Candidates on College Costs
Anya Kamenetz, NPR's lead digital education reporter and the author of The Test: Why Our Schools are Obsessed with Standardized Testing...But You Don’t Have to Be (PublicAffairs, 2015), discusses the candidates' plans to address rising tuition, mounting student loan debt, and the accessibility of higher education.
Bernie Sanders is suggesting a single-payer-type public university system, which would suggest signing a paper at the federal level to cut tuition. But Kamenetz says the federal government just doesn't have that kind of control over colleges.
Hillary Clinton is proposing a matching grant program, which would mean money would be made available to state colleges that pledge to hold their costs down. Kamenetz says matching grants have been used to some success in the K-12 world, but the problem in higher ed is it's been so convenient for state governments to increase tuition and lower subsidies.
Donald Trump wants the government to stop profiting from loans altogether and for colleges to "have skin in the game." Kamenetz calls his plan "really interesting" but potentially problematic, because in other scenarios where colleges have become creditors it hasn't always worked out so well.
